A Wash of Renewal
by dooder's nin
Summary: A loose manticore results in an afternoon spent chasing after a much smaller, younger, and far more chaotic version of their dual-natured friend. Keeping their miniature friend together becomes a daunting task when pranks and insecurities are brought to the others' attention. While waiting for the friend they know to return, they learn more about making assumptions about each other


It was a calm day at school in which the friends had decided to spend their lunch time in the courtyard after lunch. Holt had his music blaring again from one of those players that he always seemed to have around him. Frankie was beginning to wonder if somehow they just showed up whenever he transformed, since Holt wasn't always triggered from Jackson by one of them yet still he had one. As was typical when he was with them, the group had their own mini-party atmosphere around them that gave them that little boost despite whatever may have had them less than excited about a typical school day. While Holt may have also done several other things that caused equal amounts of stress, they were grateful that it seemed this side of their friend usually focused on making things feel better for them. Then again, it could also have been him trying to just do whatever he wanted and letting them come along too – or as the case was for this particular day, effectively forcing his ideas on them and having them come to accept his outgoing style as a well-earned break from the usual stresses.

"Come on Frankie-Fine. Don't leave me hangin' here all by lonesome!" Holt shouted to her, pulling her up from where she had been sitting to get her to join in on what had been his solo dance. Frankie was taken by surprise but laughed at her boyfriend's antics.

"Holt, this isn't actually dancing." She said, trying to keep up with whatever form of dance he was attempting to get them to do together, resulting in her tripping over her feet more than normal. Nevertheless, he continued to keep up at it while laughing at her, the others chuckling at the show too.

"Clawd and I can show you how it should be done." Draculaura said through a smile, pulling her now panicking boyfriend onto the impromptu dance floor. While the music didn't exactly lend itself to much more than simple dance, the vampire and werewolf couple were more in sync with their moves.

"If you're lookin' for fancy schmancy moves Frankie, I do actually know a few. But they ain't my style at all." Holt said, tossing Frankie into the air so that she spun once before catching her. Frankie let out a gleeful shout at his move, clutching onto him once he caught her again.

"Whoa. Cool moves cuz'" Heath said, turning to look at Abbey. The yeti just rolled her eyes and held up a hand. "Do not even be thinking about it, Heath. You will drop me." She said. Heath just scoffed before getting up and holding out a hand. Abbey reluctantly stood up as well, the others following their movements in anticipation of what was sure to be some spectacular failure again on Heath's part. Cleo scooted a little more behind Deuce, not eager to have any errant flame of their elemental friend catch onto her bandages again. Gil and Lagoon also shifted a little more out of what they hoped would be the line of fire, literally.

Heath and Abbey mimicked some of Draculaura's and Clawd's moves, although looking far more choppy even for Abbey. "Heath, don't do anything you can't handle." Deuce warned, already shaking his head as he watched his friend attempting to get into place like Holt had done, his cousin not paying attention as he twirled Frankie around again.

"Relax, I got this." Heath said, making the others wince as they realized what would inevitably follow that usual statement of his. But as he looked like he was about ready to try and lift Abbey, the yeti grabbed his arms from behind her and pulled him through the space between her legs and up so that he twisted mid-air and landed facing her.

"Hah! Is how we dance in my village. Now you try." She said, Heath looking confused but doing as she instructed so that Abbey slid through his legs to repeat the maneuver. "Is much better when have ice to slide on and snow to kick up, but do not want to accidentally freeze you again." She said to her boyfriend as they danced a little more. Heath laughed at his girlfriend's statement.

"Yeah. Appreciate that." He said, the two of them going back to just dancing next to each other and alleviating any fears for the rest of the group. Frankie spun a little too far out of Holt's range, sparking a little as she grabbed onto the table Gil and Lagoona were sitting at. "Ugh…Holt…no more spinning around, please." She said, holding her head and not appreciating the chuckles she was getting from the four who had opted to stay seated and just watch.

"Aw, c'mon. That's the best part…and I pretty much used up all the other fancy moves I had to learn." Holt said, coming over to stand next to her. "Jackson's the one who can do the other boring, slow, stuff. No fun in that…and definitely not what I would call a part of any manly style." He finished, causing Cleo to laugh as she gave in and pulled Deuce out onto the floor, giving Heath and Abbey a wide berth just in case.

"Dude, what did you start?" Deuce complained to him, but Holt seemed to just ignore his plight in favor of trying to get Frankie to keep dancing with him. "Why don't you just give her a minute, Holt?" Gil tried to suggest, Frankie shooting him an appreciative glance for the effort. But Holt wasn't known for his patience, returning after dancing on his own again and joining in on the others for only a few minutes.

"Ugh…Holt. You're making me loosen up my stiches with those moves. I need to fix them first, alright?" Frankie said, earning a sad look from Holt. She couldn't be sure if that was just him using his begging face on her or if she really had bruised his ego a little. Either way, she had to force herself to look away to not give in.

"Fine…" Holt sighed, walking over to the boombox. "Wait Holt! I didn't mean for you to go away!" Frankie shouted over to him, getting up after tying the last stich on her right ankle to try and intercept him. But Holt had already switched the music to some other style that wasn't the right tempo to keep him transformed, a burst of flame announcing Jackson's return. He looked around to try and figure out where he was and what was going on.

"Hi Jackson." Frankie sighed at him, looking down as she stood next to him. Jackson widened his eyes as he looked at her. "Whoa. I didn't think you guys were usually _this_ depressed to see _me_ again." He said, feeling a little insulted and hurt. Frankie whipped her head back up to look at him. "Oh! No! I didn't mean it like that. Of course I'm glad to see you – I'm always glad to see you Jackson." she said, giving him a reassuring hug.

"I'm not. Why'd your other side change the music. I was just getting the hang of this…" Heath whined to Jackson, although both cousins knew he didn't have any real meaning behind his denial of enjoying Jackson's company too. Abbey huffed and put her hands on her hips at his rude choice of words, Heath shrugging in confusion as he thought about what might have made her mad at him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm a downer. So you've told me Heath." Jackson remarked, shaking his head at his cousin but understanding what he meant. He hadn't spent as much time with him without having learned that his cousin didn't try to be so rude with his words – Heath didn't seem to have enough of an attention span to observe when his words weren't taken the right way, something that made him and Abbey quite a couple. "But I have no idea why he does what he does. I've told you all that several times by now I think." Jackson finished, Frankie still leaning into his side.

"I think he may have wanted Frankie to get to have the dance she was looking for mate." Lagoona helpfully interjected. "He seemed bummed that he couldn't make her happy. Maybe he thought this was something he could let you as _you_ help him out with."

Jackson looked down at Frankie who nervously laughed at his unspoken question. "You want to dance?" he asked her curiously. "I have no problem with that, but Holt normally is the one you all want to dance along with. What happened?"

Frankie shrugged. "He was talking about how you and he learned how to do fancy dances – I'm guessing for when you and he were at that wedding. Apparently all he remembered were how to do the lifts and twirls and I was going to start losing limbs if he kept that up for much longer." She explained, Jackson making a sound of understanding at what Holt had intended.

"I can help you with that Frankie." He said, stepping up beside her and wrapping an arm around her waist while he held her other hand. Frankie blushed at the position and how Jackson continued to stand there for a couple of seconds before she realized he was waiting for the beat of the music to start his dance. He gently guided her around the courtyard area in time to the waltz that was playing, carrying her through the motions as best he could and only spinning her a few times before the song ended. Jackson smiled at Frankie with a bit of a blush to his face, although Frankie could feel the sparks starting to build up in her bolts from her own nervousness. But they were saved from awkwardly commenting to one another when they heard a round of applause and they looked away from each other to see their friends and the classrooms that looked out into the courtyard clapping for their performance. They pulled away from each other, nervously sputtering as they waved to the others.

"Oh! That was dreamy Jackson!" Draculaura cooed over watching them dance. "I remember going to balls like that too." she said, sighing as she thought back on her own dances. Jackson gave another nervous laugh, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to come up with something to say. Heath for once didn't have anything to say, but sent his cousin a sly look and winking. "Oh, shut up Heath." He said, Heath laughing at his cousin.

"Again! Jackson dance with me!" Draculaura said, pulling Jackson away from the seat he had been heading toward. "No…uh…wouldn't you rather have Clawd dance with you?" He asked, looking to the werewolf for both help in getting away from the overly-excited vampire and to make sure that his friend wasn't going to get upset with the idea. But Clawd had a look of relief on his face. "No, no. Go ahead." He said, relieved at not having to try and provide a similar romantic dance for his girlfriend while also finding amusement at the look of disbelief on Jackson's face.

"Oh, man. Jackson doesn't know what he's in for now." Clawd said as he sat next to his friends, Cleo still attempting to have Deuce dance with her despite his protests that he was doing all he could. He and the others watched as Jackson and Draculaura seemed to glide along the ground as they danced to the next song on the radio, Jackson doing his best it seemed to lead while keeping some distance between himself and Draculaura. But Draculaura didn't seem to find anything awkward in being so close to him while they were dance, giggling as she had fun reliving memories of other ballroom dances. There was another round of applause as the two ended their dance, Draculaura giving Jackson a friendly hug in thanks.

"No more girls. Give me a break first." Jackson said, as Clawdeen and Ghoulia looked ready to pull him out for another dance. Frankie laughed along with the others at the disappointment in the girls' faces but Jackson plopped himself down in the shade. "Who knew those stupid lessons would make me so likable?" he asked as Frankie joined him. "Wonder how long it will last?"

Frankie smiled as she snuggled up to her boyfriend. "Well, I'll always be impressed." She said, earning a chuckle from Jackson. "But you better be careful – I think Clawdeen really might start howling at you to get a turn if you don't head back out there soon." She said, finding it amusing how Jackson softly groaned and let his head fall forward onto Frankie's in his displeasure.

"Better do this sooner rather than later I suppose." He said, Frankie getting up so that Jackson could stand. Clawdeen smiled as Jackson held out a hand to her, the two of them beginning to dance as well, although Clawdeen seemed to be making things a little difficult for Jackson to compensate. Clawd laughed at every time Clawdeen stepped on Jackson's foot and he would make smiles that were more akin to grimaces as he tried not to say anything. "Oh, I should be filming this…" Clawd said, getting out his phone and beginning to record his sister's attempts to be graceful.

As they were dancing, the others noticed a strange sound, getting louder it seemed. Looking around, they were startled to see a group of animals that looked like they had escaped from the cryptozoology elective course that the school was offering for half a year. It was a new idea to have some animals be a part of the lesson, and it seemed that there was a very good reason for why it previously had not been considered. Jackson pulled Clawdeen out of the way of one of the larger animals as it stampeded through the courtyard, the werewolf clinging to his backside as it passed close to them.

"Whoa! Everybody okay?" Heath asked as they all recovered from their near encounter with the larger animals, some of the smaller ones still running around near them but apparently not too concerned with them. Jackson nodded to his cousin, looking over to see Frankie coming out of hiding from behind one of the trees with Cleo. Clawdeen let her head drop onto Jackson's shoulder. "Thanks Jackson…I'd have been wolf chow if you hadn't pulled me aside." She said to him, Jackson giving her a shaky smile. "No problem. But I think the dancing's over for today." He said, looking over to see the wrecked stereo. Clawdeen nodded and pulled away from him, walking over to her brother who looked over his sister as much as she would allow him to in his concern. Jackson sighed and ran a hand through his hair, ducking as some avian/rabbit-looking like creature he thought might have been a Wolpertinger jumped or flew over his head.

Frankie walked over to him, carefully stepping around some of the more serpentine creatures that lingered. "You okay?" she asked him, Jackson nodding as he wrapped an arm around her. "That's good – that thing got so close to you and Clawdeen, we couldn't see you for a moment from where we were standing." She said, Jackson pulling her into a hug.

"Well, as you can see we got out of the way in time." He said, letting her hold him tightly to her with her monstrous strength for as long as he could handle before gently tapping on her shoulder so she could release him. He took in a deep breath once able, Frankie looking sheepishly at him but neither having to say anything. Jackson and Frankie made to head over to their friends when they heard a weird growl sound, almost feline but not quite.

Jackson pulled Frankie closer to him as he spotted an animal the size of a lynx, with a lion-like body but a face with more humanoid-like features surrounded by its mane staring back at them. At first he thought it might have been a sphinx, but the three rows of teeth and the odd-looking tail clued him in that it was neither sphinx nor chimera. The manticore lunged at them from its perch atop the fountain, Jackson and Frankie dropping to the ground to avoid it. Jackson covered Frankie as best he could as the creature turned and emitted a blue smoke from its scorpion-like tail, the barbs standing upright as it gave its attack.

"Jackson! Frankie!" Deuce shouted as he noticed their situation, bolting over with Heath close behind to try and help. The manticore hissed as it acknowledged potential threats, its fur beginning to stand upright on its spine. Heath shot a blast of flame next to it to keep it from simply lunging onto his cousin and his girlfriend, seeing how Jackson had essentially made himself a shield for Frankie from that blue spray. For once, Heath's plan seemed to work as the manticore jumped back enough for Deuce to take his glasses off and turn it to stone without fear of unintentionally hitting Jackson or Frankie with his petrifying gaze.

Heath didn't wait for Deuce to join him as he ran over to where Jackson and Frankie had dropped to the ground, Frankie pressed up against the side of the fountain as Jackson covered her. "You two alright?" he asked, seeing how neither had moved just yet. "Jackson!" he yelled, not sure if he should touch him with that stuff all over his back. Frankie stirred from underneath him and looked up to see Heath partially standing in the fountain as he attempted to get her and his cousin to stand up on their own.

"Is it gone?" she timidly asked, receiving a nod from Heath. "Jackson you can let go now." She said, squirming a little. "Jackson?" she asked as he continued to hold onto her. Jackson gave a slow nod before easing up his grip, letting her sit up more and allowing Heath to pry her from Jackson's hold. "Okay. But give me a couple of seconds guys." Jackson finally said, easing Frankie's concern. Jackson stiffly maneuvered himself to his knees, taking a moment to catch his breath.

"You alright dude? That thing got that spray all over your back man." Deuce said, the others coming closer to see if there was anything they could do too. Jackson blinked a few times before looking over to his friend.

"I feel really weird right now." He said, shaking his head a little. "Weird? Weird how?" Frankie panicked as she and Heath got out of the fountain. But Jackson just shrugged before looking over at his girlfriend. "What? Oh! Right…weird. I don't remember what I was gonna say…." He trailed off as he shifted so that he was sitting regularly on the ground. "Were we still dancing?" he asked of his friends.

"Okay…something's up." Deuce said as he decided to forgo caution and help his friend stand up. The others also looked concerned, Ghoulia about to remark on something when Venus and Headmistress Bloodgood came sprinting into the courtyard.

"Is everyone alright?" their headmistress asked, looking around at the damage the animals did. Venus also looked around before addressing them with her own question. "Which way did the animals go? You guys didn't do anything to them, did you?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

"Do anything to _them_?!" Cleo screeched as Venus glared at them. "How about what _they_ did to _us_? What did you do, hmmm? Let me guess, you decided that whatever cage they were in wasn't something that these poor, 'defenseless' animals deserved." She said, the sarcasm in her voice evident.

"That's exactly right. And look – they only wanted to go free!" she said, motioning with her arms around the courtyard. But before things could get too heated, Headmistress Bloodgood intervened. "Enough girls. Venus is aware of her awaiting reprimand for her actions, but I have enlisted her to help as part of her punishment. Now, which direction did these creatures head in and is everyone alright?" she asked, repeating her earlier question.

"No. One of those things attacked Frankie and Jackson." Lagoona said, Frankie nodding to her headmistress when the attention was placed on her. "One of the smaller creatures that got left behind pounced from on top of the fountain. It sprayed something on us and I think Jackson…" she began to explain, breaking off to look at her boyfriend only to find that he wasn't in the courtyard with them anymore. "Jackson?!" she called out for him, the others also looking around to spot where he might have slipped off too without their noticing.

"Oh man! How'd he just disappear like that?" Heath said, having been certain his cousin was standing between him and Deuce. "Especially being so out of it." He said, gaining their headmistress's attention.

"Dude used himself as a shield for Frankie when that thing…" Deuce explained, indicating the stone manticore, "sprayed some sort of blue mist at them. His shirt had some stuff on it too."

"What did you do to these animals?" Draculaura asked Venus, wondering what would have spurred them into the chaos that became the courtyard. Venus shrugged innocently before answering. "I gave them some all organic mandrake. You can't deprive these animals of the nutritional benefits…" she started to say but a look from Headmistress Bloodgood had her quickly decide not to elaborate, smiling sheepishly at the headmistress in an attempt to not get into any more trouble.

"Alright. I need to see to it that the animals are dealt with. Why don't you all go look for your friend?" Headmistress Bloodgood suggested. "He may have just gone back inside. Try not to panic just yet." She said, indicating to Venus to follow her to help wrangle the animals back onto school grounds at least.

"Okay…he can't be too far." Clawd said, seeing the anxious looks from his sister and her friends. "Let's just go back inside and see if there's any trace of where he decided to wander off too." he said as they all walked inside.

Ghoulia moaned out a response which made them all pause for a moment. "That's right…we have no idea what that blue stuff was supposed to do. Maybe some of us should go look up what that thing is and what it might have been trying to do." Draculaura suggested, watching as Cleo and Deuce walked off with Ghoulia and Lagoona to the library, Ghoulia already typing on her phone for possibilities.

* * *

Jackson stumbled down into the catacombs, aware that this was more Holt's hide out with Operetta than where he typically would hang out, yet not caring to wonder too much about that detail as he felt the effects of the mandrake-root induced euphoria that came from being sprayed by that manticore.

"Well what brings you down here honey?" Operetta's voice called out to him, causing him to spin around and loose his balance a little as he leaned up against the wall. "Easy there darlin', you ain't looking your best right now." The phantom said as she came into view, her face showing her confusion and concern as Jackson just smiled back at her in a goofy manner.

"I'm fine…I'm great, actually." Jackson said, waving off her concern. Operetta looked disbelievingly at him. "Hey, can you play something? Please?" he asked her, shocking her even further. She was used to the occasional requests from the other students, but she expected Jackson's other side to ask something like that of her.

"Did you hit yer head on the way down here?" she asked, Jackson giving up on the task of standing and simply sliding down the wall. He chuckled at her a little, shaking his head in response. "Or…what did you drink to get you this messed up?" she asked again, sitting down next to him to keep him upright. Jackson just giggled again, Operetta finding herself unable to chuckle at his behavior herself.

"Oh, Venus released those animals from….from that…crypto…zoo…zoological class. They attacked me and Frankie but Frankie's okay." Jackson explained as though it was nothing special, scrunching up his face in a disinterested expression. Operetta gasped but Jackson turned to address her once again before she could say anything. "Can you play something? I think Holt wants out." He said, his voice sounding like a little kid wanting his toy. She remained sitting there a moment longer as she stared at him. "Alright sweetie pie. Don't complain to me later." She said, getting up to head over to her instruments and setting up her dubstep to play alongside her organ music. Looking sideways, she watched as Holt was triggered, finding it beyond strange that Jackson asked for Holt to be let out without seemingly having any reason. She hoped that maybe Holt wouldn't be feeling the effects of whatever attack Jackson had mentioned to her and that Jackson was able to understand that at some level.

"Oh man…" Holt said, dragging himself up with the help of the wall. He shook his head as he made sure his headphones were securely on before nodding to Operetta to let her know she could stop.

"Hey there Holt." Operetta said, swiveling around on the organ bench to face him. "You doing okay? Jackson doesn't normally ask to trigger you unless there's something going on or something he thinks only you as _you_ can handle…" she said, watching as Holt got his bearing. He didn't typically care where he was, often taking control and making wherever he ended up his own place for however long he was out. But Holt seemed disoriented too, concerning his musical buddy.

"Jackson must've thought us bein' me woulda helped with…whatever this is….but I can tell somethin's up. Bet it knocked him on his back a couple of times if wakin' up on the floor has any…whoa!" he said, losing his balance as he walked over to the phantom ghoul, Operetta getting up to catch him as he tipped a little sideways.

"Good thing he let you out then." She said as she guided him onto the bench next to her. "Drunk is the best way I can describe how he came over to me, askin' me to play somethin'" she said, Holt smiling a little but nodding along with her assessment. "How 'bout I keep playin' then. Might make you feel more like you." She said, Holt shooting her a grateful smile as he gazed sleepily at her from the effects of the mandrake influences on the manticore's attack. Operetta smiled back and returned to playing, Holt getting up shortly after and stretching.

"Operetta….somethin' ain't right." He said, flexing his arms a couple of times and grimacing. "Everything feels stiff and tight, like I'm not fittin' in myself anymore…" he said. He ran his hands across his chest a few times before stumbling away and breathing heavily. Operetta stopped playing to go over to him, cautiously approaching him as she knew that as a Hyde, he might lash out at her despite being close friends. "Holt, calm down! Let me help!" she said, holding onto him as Holt panicked. Luckily for her though, she could hear footsteps approaching. "Wait right here Holt and I mean it!" she said sternly to him, Holt giving a tiny nod through a grimace. Feeling confident that he was going to stay put, her rehearsal room having only one entrance from the catacombs anyway, she rushed out to grab the attention of whoever was nearby to help her get her distressed friend the attention he needed.

Running out in the direction she heard movement, Operetta nearly ran into Frankie and Abbey as they came running around the corner. "Oh thank goodness you're here. Follow me! Holt's this way!" Operetta said, grabbing Frankie's hand and pulling her to follow her with enough force to actually pull her hand off. But they were all heading in the same direction anyway, Frankie grabbing her hand back as the three rushed back into the room she had left out in. But the blue-skinned elemental was nowhere in sight.

"I thought you say Holt in here?" Abbey asked as she caught her breath. Frankie also looked a little frustrated with having been dragged away from her goal, but Operetta stood there in shock as she looked around the room. The organ bench was knocked over and several sheets of music were strewn around the room, some of them with charred ends. A few other instruments also looked as though they'd seen better days, one of which was in a couple of pieces. Frankie sighed but walked further into the room. "Well, it looks like he might have been here at some point. Only he could make such a mess in such a short amount of time." She said, turning to face the two girls and throwing her hands up in the air. "At least the music is still playing so maybe he's around here somewhere." She said.

"He was just in here! We would've passed him if he left the same way he got in – and there is no other way." Operetta said in confusion, stepping over some of the mess to head over to where she had last seen Holt standing. Frankie and Abbey looked at each other before looking back over to Operetta, Frankie appearing as though she wanted to say something else. But a banging noise from behind them had them all jump, giving out involuntary screams of fright as they turned to where the noise came.

"Uh oh! Oops?" a child-like voice said, the girls looking down to see a five-year old, blue-skinned, flame-haired boy standing with arms outstretched at where the speaker that now lay dented on the floor had been placed. "Hey there! Anybody want to tell me what I'm doin' in here and how to get out. There's nothing else for me to do in here!" the little boy said, his hair looking more wild than usual in a way only a small boy could manage to create.

"H-holt?" Frankie asked incredulously. The boy looked up at her and flashing her a wide grin. "That's me! How'd you know?" he asked as he jumped over the speaker to pick up one of the violins that lay on the floor, strumming it a little and sticking his tongue out as he concentrated on producing a tune by strumming it, but only succeeding in getting a few cords out before setting the instrument on fire. But he didn't seem bothered by the loss of the ability to play it, instead laughing as he watched it burn for a second longer and then smashing it on the side of the organ.

"Hey! Don't do that!" Operetta yelled, the destruction enough to snap her out of her shocked state. But Holt merely growled at her before hitting the side of the organ again with the little that remained of the violin. "No! Make me!" He yelled at her before apparently switching from anger to deciding to make a game of things as he gave out a laugh both mischievous and gleeful. Operetta lunged forward to grab a hold of the child's arms but he jumped out of the way at the last minute to climb up the pipes behind the organ, laughing as he reached the top and blowing a raspberry at the phantom.

"Oooh! You little rascal! Get down here!" she said, pointing and giving her best stern look to her pint-sized friend. Abbey laughed despite the situation, finding Holt's behavior to be not all that dissimilar from when he was his older self. But Frankie elbowed her to get her to stop encouraging him to keep away. Abbey looked sheepishly at Frankie, while the others sighed and also attempted to coax her boyfriend down before he did any more damage to the room or to himself.

"You wanna play rough? You don't know how tough my daddy's taught me to play…"Operetta threatened, turning away from Holt to pick up the organ bench. Setting it right she looked at Holt once more. "Last chance small fry. I'm warnin' ya! We may be friends but this is too much!" she said, but Holt didn't seem to care as he shimmied further up the pipes. Operetta growled and sat down on the bench. "Aw…did you give up already? No fun…" Holt whined before giggling again.

"Operetta, he's just a kid. He doesn't know what he's doing." Frankie said, eyes wide at the idea of the phantom's daughter demonstrating just how her father brought down that opera house. "Don't hurt him." she tried again, leaning back to look up at Holt as he banged on the pipes some more.

"Oh! That is it!" Operetta said, beginning to pound on the organ keys with all she had, the air forced through the pipes shaking the whole instrument. Holt stopped mid-bang as his eyes widened and he began to slip, coughing from the dust that was blown into his face.

"Operetta, stop! He's going to fall!" Abbey shouted to her friend, Frankie nervously watching every move Holt made. Operetta eased up as the yeti sent a short burst of cold air at her to get her attention. But it seemed the damage had been done as Holt tried to get a better grip before completely slipping off the metal pipes, bouncing a little as he fell down into Frankie's waiting arms.

"Holt? Are you okay?" she asked, setting him down to look him over. The little boy swayed a little in front of her before sneezing a few times from the dust, shooting out a few flames with each sneeze. But he looked up to Frankie, giving a short nod before wincing and grabbing at his left arm. "Ow…" he whined, sniffling a little.

"Oh! Don't cry. It's okay." Frankie said, reaching out for him as he tried to back away. "Let me see it okay? I just want to help." She said to Holt, the boy's bottom lip quivering.

"I don't get hurt. Mom…Mom says I'm too tough." He said, voice quivering. "You play awfully rough" he said to Operetta as Frankie gingerly rolling up the sleeve of his jacket to look at his arm and seeing a tiny cut. Operetta looked guilty at the child version of her friend, before getting up to walk over to him.

"No! No!" Holt said, trying to pull out of Frankie's grip. "Hey! It's okay. I did warn ya…" Operetta said in a hushed tone as she tried to talk with him. "I didn't mean for ya to fall off. I just wanted you to stop wreckin' my stuff. I'm sorry you got hurt, but I think you'll be okay – you got a very helpful lady who cares about makin' sure you're okay lookin' after ya…" she said, smiling at him and indicating Frankie.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking at Frankie to determine if he was being lied to, but Frankie gave him a reassuring smile and Holt launched himself at her. Frankie let out a muffled sound of surprise at the force Holt could manage at five, but wrapped her arms around him as he looked for comfort.

"Why don't we head out of here?" she suggested, Holt nodding but not letting go. "Do you want me to carry you?" she asked, worried that he might say yes and having to deal with the possibility of having to hand him off to Abbey to carry him out of the catacombs. But luckily he pulled away with a mildly insulted look on his face.

"No way! I'm a big boy. I don't need to be carried – I go where I want!" he said, puffing out his chest a little. "But….could you…I mean…you could hold my hand….if you want." He said, visibly shifting around nervously as he made the suggestion. Frankie smiled at Holt's attempt to seem tough while still wanting someone to hold his hand. "If you wouldn't mind Holt, I'd appreciate if you could help me out." She said, earning a smile from Holt who grabbed onto her hand as Frankie stood up to lead them out.

"If it's all the same to you, I think I'll stay here." Operetta said, sighing as she looked around the room. "I don' t think he wants me around him at the moment and I've got my own damage control to deal with." She said, motioning with her hand at the entirety of the room. Abbey patted her on her shoulder.

"We text you when we have answer." She promised, following Frankie and Holt out of the room. "Must be some way to get him back to old self again soon…Attack turning him into baby – seems cliché." She said, Operetta just nodding along with Abbey's assessment rather than get too involved with the yeti's strange conclusions. But Abbey had to put a little more speed into her gait as she noticed how far ahead Holt had dragged Frankie, thinking how much more difficult dealing with him as a child might be for all of them and hoping that the effects would wear off soon.

* * *

Reaching the end of the catacombs Frankie helped Holt to push open the door. Their friends had been texted by Abbey who had luckily had the sense to let everyone know that Holt had been found – she just neglected to mention a few certain details that probably wouldn't have been believed over the phone. All but Ghoulia, Cleo, Deuce and Clawdeen were waiting nearby, no doubt hoping to be able to move on soon enough, even if they were getting out of a few classes with their scavenger hunt for their friend. As it was, there was only an hour or so of class left. But the look on the guys' faces as Frankie was lead out by a child version of Holt was something she would not be forgetting anytime soon.

"Frankie, what is that?" Heath asked, eyeing his cousin with a confused look. Holt in turn didn't seem to find being addressed as a 'what' all that great, sending his cousin a glare that was impressive for someone of his size and apparent age. "I ain't a what, stupid – I'm a Hyde!" he said, breaking away from Frankie to walk over to Heath. The elemental looked between Frankie and Holt and then to Abbey, the girls just giving a shrug in response. "Hey! Don't ignore me!" Holt said, kicking Heath in the shin and laughing as he winced from the hit.

"Ow! Holt!" Heath whined, jumping on one leg for a moment as he tried to shake off the unfairly strong kick, Abbey chuckling a little as she walked over to her boyfriend and let him lean on her shoulder. Holt looked up at Heath curiously before taking in the rest of the crowd that he had the undivided attention of, no doubt to his delight.

"Well, what are you all starin' at me for? I haven't done anything…promise…"Holt said, shooting them all a smile that was anything but innocent, as the scoffs from Clawd and Gil made known. Holt just laughed again. "Hey…is this supposed to be some sorta party? I like those – nobody's better at that kinda stuff than me!" he said, turning back to Frankie once he felt confident that Heath wasn't about to retaliate. "How come he knows my name too?" Holt asked Frankie, pointing over his shoulder at Heath.

"'Cuz I'm your cousin you little…" Heath started to say before Abbey cut him off with a shake of her head. Holt's face lit up though as a wide smile spread across his face that reached to his eyes. "A cousin! Mom said I had more family than her and dad, but I ain't met anybody else like her and me though." He said, sprinting back over to Heath so fast that the elemental flinched at another potential rough act from Holt. "Oh so awesome!" Holt said, jumping up and down, "We can go do fun stuff! Mom never likes it when I set things on fire but it's just so much fun – you and I can go on a…a…" Holt started to ramble, stumbling over the right word for whatever destruction and chaos he had in mind.

"Whoa, slow down there little guy." Clawd said, interjecting into the conversation and receiving a look from Holt that made his displeasure at being interrupted known. "That's not the sort of thing you should be doing" he said, attempting to be reasonable with Holt. But that plan didn't ever seem to work when Holt was his proper age either and so nobody was too shocked when Holt seemed to growl at the werewolf. But when he shot a decent size flame at him that caught the edge of his jacket sleeve, they were all surprised enough to have their attention be drawn away from watching all of Holt's movements.

"Whoa! Geez, Holt!" Clawd said as he began to pat down his clothes to put the fire out, Dracularua attempting to help him but a quick spray of water from Gil's tank did the trick. "Thanks man. I owe you one." Clawd said to Gil, watching as his friend adjusted his tank's settings around his head to keep any more water from getting out. Gil nodded to Clawd, Lagoona doing her best to make sure Gil hadn't done anything to jeopardize himself too.

"Come on cuz', let's go make our own party someplace else!" Holt said, not waiting for Heath to follow but taking off down the hallway at a speed that demonstrated their friend's Hyde-side speed. Heath called out for Holt to wait, but all he heard in response was the echo of his childish laugh.

"How does he keep doing that?" Abbey asked as Frankie groaned at losing her boyfriend again. But Draculaura spoke up before anyone could decide to do anything else. "Better question – why is he a little kid again? And what is his problem?" she asked, hands on her hips at the spectacle that had just played out at her boyfriend's expense, directing her glare at Frankie and Heath for answers.

"How should I know?" Frankie said in a helpless tone. "Abbey and I had been searching the catacombs when we came across Operetta who said Holt needed our help. Next thing we know, Holt's making a mess of her practice room and looking like this!" she said, sparks starting to show from her bolts.

"I didn't really get to meet Holt when he was that age, only Jackson– they weren't living nearby either so it wasn't a regular thing. But I'm guessing he's like any other kid with a temper tantrum, just amplified to the extreme being a Hyde and all." Heath said, still wincing from the bruise he was sure was forming on his leg. At Frankie's look he sighed and tried to provide any more details. "Look – his trigger was different when we were younger. I never really got to meet Holt because our playdates where during the day and Holt came out at night. Not sure when it changed to music triggering him, but that's why I had no idea when he first came here that Jackson and Holt were the same guy." He said as he looked around at his friends. "But we shouldn't be standing around here for much longer. Who knows what he might get up to if left on his own."

Frankie nodded her head in agreement, seeming to get herself together again. "Okay. Any idea where he might go?" she asked Heath, but it seemed he had spent all his information on mini-Holt. Sighing, she looked to the others for help.

"Ghoulia and the others are trying to figure out what the manticore might have done – but I think we know that now." Draculaura said. "So what might a five-year-old Holt want right now to set up his party?" she asked.

"He might be trying to find something to eat first…" Lagoona suggested. "I mean…he's five and he's been into a lot of trouble already – he's bound to work up an appetite…."

Heath nodded at Lagoona's suggestion, Frankie rolling her eyes. "If he's anything like you then that's as good a place as any to find him." she said, ignoring Heath's look as she headed toward the hall she saw Holt run down before he got out of their sights. As they approached the creepateria they could smell smoke and they heard quite a commotion coming from the kitchen area.

"Well I think we guessed right." Clawd said, getting out of the way of a couple of students who were fleeing the area as smoke billowed from the kitchens. It sounded like Holt had decided he wanted to use the pots and pans as a makeshift drum set, along with anything else he thought sounded good. The group rushed inside to see all the gas stoves lit, flames spewing from them dangerously, but Holt apparently had run off just before they got there.

"Heath! See if you can do something about those flames!" Frankie said to him, receiving a startled look from the elemental before he reluctantly stepped forward to try and control the flame. "Just because I'm an elemental doesn't mean I can control every little fire Frankie!" he said, doing his best to turn the knobs on the stove off, being the only one of the group least likely to suffer any burns should he get too close. But the others ignored his protests, well aware that he should be able to do just that in theory, but also aware of his inability to adequately control his own flames at times too. They were all lucky he hadn't at some point turned his clothes to ash while at school and given everyone a sight to remember.

"Holt?!" Frankie called out, doing her best to not trip over the cutlery and pans strewn all over the floor. Draculaura and Clawd walked on the opposite side of the island counter in the kitchen, bending down to see if they could spot where their friend had gone. "Holt! You come out right now!" Frankie said, hoping to sound stern enough for him to do as she said if he was still there.

"I guess he already left" Abbey said, throwing her hands up in the air in a shrug at Holt's disappearance. "Who would have thought such tiny person could cause so much damage? Is like yak through…" she started to say as Draculaura let out a surprised yelp and clung to Clawd as the utensil rack slipped off its chain on one side and dangled from the ceiling.

"Man…how'd he even do that?" Clawd said as he watched the rack swing back and forth a few times. "Did he just blow through here without taking anything?" he asked, wondering if Holt had any other idea than destruction on his mind when he tore through the kitchen. The two lunch-ladies came wandering back in since the smoke had cleared, one of whom carried a fire extinguisher although it seemed she was doing that more for the appearance of doing something to handle the situation as opposed to actually doing something.

"Mr. Burns! Did you have something to do with this?!" One of the ladies yelled over to him as he put the last of the fire out. Heath looked genuinely insulted that they chose to immediately blame him, but Abbey came to his rescue. "No…if you were being in here to put fire out, you would have seen how he handle taking care of large flames." She said, shooting them a look. Clawd decided to intervene before anything else was said, Heath sending a grateful smile to his girlfriend for defending him.

"Can you tell if anything's missing?" Clawd asked, but the lunch-ladies shrugged as they took in the mess that was the kitchens. One of them walked over to one of the open drawers and looked inside before glancing around on the floor. "Uh oh…we're missing a bunch of knives here." She said, causing a look of alarm to spread on the others' faces.

"Okay. Everybody out!" the other lunch lady said, effectively shooing the five of them out into the creepateria where Gil and Lagoona stood waiting for them. "Sorry mates, didn't think we'd all fit in there with a fire goin'" Lagoona apologized but Frankie waved off any further apology.

"Holt made one heck of a mess – he's got a talent for that." Dracularua said, looking as frustrated as Frankie. "We think he may have taken some knives but we've no idea what he plans on doing with them." She said.

"Maybe we should split up. You know, follow the screams." Gil said, his girlfriend rolling her eyes at his choice of words, even if that was their best bet on finding the troublesome Hyde. "Taking care of an egg for class was so much easier than trying to babysit this guy." He said to her as they all headed out, Lagoona smiling and nodding in agreement.

"Alright, we'll go upstairs and look around. We can meet up with the others in the library." Draculaura said. "They must have found out something by now." She said, Frankie, Abbey and Heath nodding as their friends headed toward the staircase.

"We'll take our search to the sports areas. Hopefully he was looking for open spaces to set up and be easy to spot." Gil said, although none of them thought that anything involving Holt was ever going to be considered easy. The two water monsters waved to the others and wished them good luck, leaving Frankie, Abbey and Heath to stand in the middle of the creepateria.

"Okay. Let's be going now – sooner we find him, better for everybody." Abbey said, grabbing Heath's hand to direct him toward where she decided to begin their search. Frankie rubbed her head, already feeling an intense heading starting to form as she worried about the various possibilities that Holt could come up with to damage himself and everyone else around him.

* * *

Frankie, Heath and Abbey had been heading down another hallway when, as Gil had told them to look out for, they heard screams coming from the auditorium. Shooting each other exasperated looks, they ran the rest of the length of the hallway to get to there, not immediately seeing what was wrong. The drama club was rehearsing and several students were on the stage.

"Oh my ghoul! What is going on?!" One of the girls asked, looking frightened as she stared at one of the tables set on the stage. The three made their way to the stage to see what was wrong, but before they could climb up the stairs, it became clear what is was that was startling them all so badly.

On the table and on some of the students were red marks that looked like blood had dripped down on them from above. "Oh no…Holt" Frankie breathed out, turning to look at Heath and Abbey with fear and concern in her eyes as she saw the knives that stood upright on the table and other props, also covered in red. She and Abbey made to grab at a couple of the knives when Heath pulled Abbey out of the way of another falling knife that landed beside where she had been standing.

"Holy smokes…what is he doin'?!" he said, not immediately releasing Abbey from his protective hold on her. "Holt – this isn't funny!" he shouted up into the area he thought Holt must have been hiding in with all the wires and ropes for the curtains, scene canvases and other props were pulled up and out of the way for rehearsals.

"No! We were doing MacDeath and just as we were acting out the scene with the bloody dagger, they just started dropping!" One of the guys on stage explained, answering why they were all so on edge from Holt's prank.

"Relax. You didn't summon any of the ghosts from the play – I don't even know if that's possible…" Frankie said, trailing off as she thought about how careful they needed to be sometimes with their performances when they involved any such actual characters. "This particular devil goes by the name Holt Hyde…" she explained. Almost immediately, everyone seemed to let out a relieved sigh, switching from tense postures to more relaxed at the news that it was only Heath's cousin.

"Well could you get him to stop? He's ruining all our props and making rehearsal difficult…." Another girl said, now looking more peeved than scared. Abbey took the opportunity to head up with Heath into the rafters behind stage to see if they could find a way to corner Holt and get him to stop messing around. Frankie chose to remain on stage to see if she could spot him if he managed to evade either of her friends.

"Sorry 'bout all that." Frankie said with a nervous smile to the other students. "He's not himself right now – nor is he Jackson – but anyway, one of those cryptozoological creatures Venus let loose turned him into a little kid. He's just trying to play with you guys." She tried to explain, laughing nervously as they all stared at her with disbelieving looks before a few just rolled their eyes at yet another Monster High predicament.

"Well, we haven't seen any five-year-old running around, but if any of us do, you'll know" the same girl who had asked her to do something about Holt said to Frankie. "We'll probably end up screaming again." She said in frustration before motioning for the others on stage to follow her lead as she starting walking up and down the aisles with Frankie to help spot Holt.

"Frankie. He's not up here anymore." Heath shouted down to her, Abbey standing next to him in the middle of the walkway where Holt would have had to stand to drop the knife and get it to fall as perfectly as he did. "But we find lots of empty packets. He must have stolen some from kitchen to pull off prank." She said, holding up a couple of packets which she sniffed. "Is tomato sauce." She said, licking off a little from the edge that had gotten onto her fingers.

"Well that explains the mess – maybe it won't stain…" Frankie said, but her efforts at being optimistic didn't seem to go over well with the terrorized cast. "How does he keep getting past us?" she complained, sitting down on one of the chairs. However, she was startled out of her seat by the cushion underneath her not coming down all the way and a muffled grunt was heard.

Frankie gasped before pulling the seat back up. "Oh, Holt! I'm so sorry!" she said, trying to catch a hold of him as he crawled away. "It's okay. You're not going to be in trouble. Just come back!" she said, standing up to race over to where he had crawled over in time to gently hold onto him, but Holt managed to go between her legs and run out of the auditorium. Heath and Abbey had been trying to make their way as quickly as possible to join Frankie in her chase, joining her out in the hall.

"Which way did he go?" Heath asked breathlessly as he and Abbey caught their breaths, but Frankie looked at him and her friend with a worried look, biting her bottom lip.

"I don't know if he went left up the ramp to the second floor or right down to the sports areas…oh, I think I may have hurt him when I pushed that seat down on him." she said, concern in her voice. Heath put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm sure you didn't – more like made his escape a little more difficult. We'll find him Frankie" he said, looking between the two possible paths to see if there was any indication of which way his cousin went.

"You two should head over to the gym – something tells me that if Jackson likes to play a few rounds, then Holt probably might want to see what there is for him to play with there." he said. "I'll see if he went upstairs." He said, looking up the ramp to where it led into the darker area for the more photosensitive students. The girls appreciated his brave front in taking the darker corridor, even though they both knew he probably was uneasy going into the dark. He swallowed thickly before letting his hair flame up and starting up the ramp as the girls walked away.

Heath got about halfway up when he was spooked by some bats that weren't pleased by his intrusion with his flame. He briefly let his flame go out as he ducked down to avoid getting a bat to the face when he heard a scuffling noise and voices from the top of the ramp. He picked up his pace to get to the top, but before he could ignite his flame again, a smaller body bumped into him, knocking him into the wall while Holt tripped and fell down the rest of the hallway.

"Holt!" Clawd's voice shouted down as he came into Heath's view. "Heath, did you see him?" he asked, Draculaura running shortly behind him. Heath nodded his head before motioning for them to follow him down the hallway. "He came running around the corner with one of those knives in his hand and holding his stomach. We called out to him but he turned back as soon as he saw us." Clawd explained as they made their way around the rounded portion of the ramp corridor, pausing as he bent over to see what he had nearly stepped on.

"Uh oh dude" He said to Heath, holding up the tiny pair of headphones that meant they were now looking for a child version of Jackson. Heath groaned as he grabbed them from Clawd, but was unable to comment as a gasp from Draculaura as she burst between them had them refocus their attention away from the headphones. They followed her line of sight, keener than their own in the dark due to her vampire abilities, to see Jackson lying on the floor surrounded by red and the knife in one of his hands.

"Oh my ghoul!" she said, kneeling down next to Jackson, face showing her revulsion at what looked like blood on the floor. Heath and Clawd came over, Heath gently lifting Jackson up to reveal the front of his stained yellow t-shirt. While Holt seemed to have retained his signature jacket since he must have had something similar since he was that age, Jackson didn't seem to have developed any look other than his favor for the color yellow.

Heath carried his cousin out into the hallway and into better light than that provided by his own flames. "Wait a minute…" Clawd said sniffing the air as Draculaura did the same.

"Yeah I know…tomato sauce…" Heath said. "Holt decided to play the role of the ghost in MacDeath and scared the livin' daylights out of the drama club." He said, smiling a little as he thought about the effect of his cousin's prank and thinking about how he might want to consult Holt on a few ideas, so long as they remained tame in the Hyde's standards.

"Then how come he's not awake?" Draculaura said, running a hand across Jackson's head to check for any bumps. She winced when she found a small red bump to the side of his tiny head that he probably got on the way down, but it didn't seem enough to have knocked him unconscious. But Heath seemed to have an answer. "Jackson often says how when he comes back after being Holt for a while, he's disoriented and tired – especially if Holt was particularly rambunctious. I think he's just tired out."

Clawd nodded in understanding. "Plus, it's probably his naptime anyway." He said, Heath nodding and shifting his hold on his sleeping cousin. Clawd sighed and picked Jackson up out of Heath's arm to carry him for his struggling friend. "I had him…" Heath whined but Clawd just rolled his eyes while Draculaura laughed, cooing over how cute little Jackson looked.

"Come on. Let's bring him to the nurse's office to make sure he's okay." Heath said, wiping some of the sauce that had gotten on his hands onto his pants. "Can you text the others that we finally got him and where we're gonna be Draculaura?" he asked, the vampire needing a little prodding from playing with Jackson's hair before she nodded and began to text her friends. Heath sighed and looked to Clawd who shared the same expression of wary relief.

* * *

Heath, Clawd and Draculaura managed to get to the nurse's office before Jackson had even stirred in Clawd's arms. But they did have to fend off the looks of panic from the others as they showed up with what looked like a bloodied Jackson. Cleo, Deuce, Clawdeen and Ghoulia had rejoined the group for the moment, piling inside the room to let Frankie fuss over her miniature boyfriend.

Frankie pulled off Jackson's dirty shirt to clean up the sauce that had gotten all over him, seeing how Holt had decided to try and hide his last stolen packet under his shirt. Jackson must have landed on it just the right way to pop open one end to have the sauce spurt out. As she and Draculaura cleaned him up, Jackson giggling in his sleep as he was accidentally tickled, the others explained what they had found out about the manticore.

"It seems that this is the intended effect of that spray after all." Cleo began, unable from giving a small smile at how Jackson curled into Draculaura's gentle touch. "The manticore is said to be able to swallow its intended prey whole. You saw the size of that thing. That spray or mist or whatever it was that it shot at you two meant to make you both this size so it could, well, you get the picture." She said, waving her hand around as she explained.

Ghoulia moaned a couple of times, spurring Clawdeen to respond. "Oh right. But that mandrake root clearly messed around with its magic – none of the books ever said if the kids reverted mentally to their child versions of themselves…" she started to explain but the others who had spent the last hour following Holt around the school interjected with various exclamations to confirm that detail.

"Um…okay…."Clawdeen said, taken aback by her friends' forceful tones, but shaking it off to continue. "Anyway, the kids in the accounts in those books all got eaten except for a small number of them so there wasn't much about how to reverse its effects. We think maybe we just have to wait it out and hope it's not permanent…" she finished up with, wincing a little at the unimpressed looks on the others' faces.

"Okay, fine…we'll get to that in a minute. Let's just make sure he's really okay." Frankie said, grateful that it seemed the nurses hadn't stuck around after hours, even though she was pretty sure there was supposed to someone in there.

"Nah, let him sleep Frankie. It's so much easier that way." Heath said, sitting on the windowsill. "I'll stick around with you, but unless you all want to watch him sleep…" he said, but Gil and Lagoona both held up their hands in a gesture of surrender.

"You don't have to tell us twice – we've got an important practice to get to today. Next week is another competition we've got to get ready for." Gil said, the two of them making their way out to hushed goodbyes from their friends. "But you can text us if you need us to help ya at all mates. Don't hesitate." Lagoona said, feeling a little guilty at always using their excuse of practice to get away from their bizarre circumstances. The others nodded once more before the two left, returning to their conversation.

"Well, if he is just going to sleep, I need to get to setting up the model designs for the upcoming talent show. I need to submit them by next week in order to qualify." Cleo said, nudging Clawdeen and Ghoulia to come help her with their project. The three smiled at the others before they too left with the same promise of coming to help if needed. Deuce also left, saying he would be right back after letting his, Clawd's and Heath's coach know that they wouldn't be able to make it to practice, leaving Frankie, Heath, Abbey and Clawd and Draculaura remaining in the room. Abbey walked over to sit next to Heath, looking to get situated for a long, tedious wait until Jackson started making noises in his sleep. Frankie gently pet his hair to try and calm whatever nightmare he seemed to be having, Draculaura offering her the stylish sweater she had worn that day to use as a blanket for him. It's fuzzy and soft nature seemed to ease Jackson as he burrowed his face into it, Frankie cautiously looking over him as he slowly blinked his eyes open blearily as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to stay asleep. He yawned and looked like he was about to just use the sweater to curl up in completely before he registered that something was different and he opened his eyes again.

"Hi Jackson." Frankie said, sending him a gentle smile as he woke up in his confused state. "You're okay. Don't worry. We're your friends here – you're just taking a nap. You can go back to sleep." She said, hoping to coax him back into a relaxed state. But Jackson was already panicking, looking around the room with wide eyes.

The others tried to make themselves appear not to hover over him, but they could tell they were failing miserably at keeping him calm when they began to see his eyes tearing up. Draculaura rushed forward to pull him into one of her hugs, but he let out a frightened noise and backed away from her and Frankie, nearly falling off the edge of the bed if not for Heath's quick movements to keep him on it.

"Easy Jackson…nobody's gonna hurt ya or anything." Heath said, Jackson looking at him with wide eyes. He blinked a few times before turning his head sideways a little to look at Heath differently. Heath took this as a hopeful sign, approaching him again as cautiously as was physically possible for someone like him who never was cautious. "You feelin' alright there?" he asked, reaching forward to gently brush his hair out of the way of the red mark on his forehead. But Jackson predictable scooted back a little, Heath sighing in frustration. "Jackson. Come on – I'm tryin' to help you out here." He said, Abbey deciding to intervene.

"You do not let us help, you do not leave. Is that simple." She said, attempting to get him to understand that continuing to act this way would get him nowhere. Frankie sighed as she could see Jackson tense up, holding Draculaura's sweater closer to him. "Abbey" she groaned as Jackson started to wail loudly, Clawd wincing as nothing seemed to stop his cries. Out of desperation, Frankie scooped him up and sat him on her lap, gently rocking him back and forth. To her and the others' relief, his cries turned to sniffles as he was comforted by Frankie's gesture, looking back over to Heath.

"You look like my mom…" he mumbled, Abbey laughing at the look on Heath's face at being told he looked like some girl. Clawd also chuckled before slapping him on the back. "I think he means you and his mom are both fire elementals. Somewhere in his mind he might recognize you, even if, uh, the other guy, didn't." he said, doing his best not to bring up Holt's name since his friend didn't seem to have had any knowledge of his alter ego until he got to Monster High. But it didn't do much to help Heath's confidence, as he still looked a little offended.

"That's because he's your cousin, Jackson, and he really is trying to help in his own special way." Frankie said, laughing as Heath took another jibe to his ego. But luckily Jackson seemed to be calming down some more, peering up at Frankie as she continued to rock him.

"Then he's not my cousin." Jackson said, snuggling into Frankie some more. "I only got one and Heath doesn't like me. He told me so." Jackson said, doing his best to hide under the sweater. Draculaura smacked Heath on the arm at that, the elemental flinching and protesting against more hits to him that day, wondering why his friends always felt the need to smack him for some reason. Abbey and Frankie looked over to Heath curiously, silently asking him for an explanation. Heath sighed, rubbing his arm as he answered. "I… may not have been the best cousin to him growing up. I thought he was some normie trying to get in on my family or something. I couldn't understand why he didn't do things the same way I could and did, and well, I wasn't as good at speaking to others as I am now." He sheepishly admitted. Clawd rolled his eyes and shook his head. "So you teased him relentlessly huh? Or did you ignore him?" he asked, trying to figure out how they were going to deal with this version of an extremely shy Jackson. Heath winced again at having to admit some more of his lesser acts. "Hey, I was a kid!" he defended himself, "But I may have done a little bit of both…" he said, Abbey groaning and shaking her head but refraining from actually smacking or freezing any part of him.

Frankie looked back down to Jackson as he looked up at her with wide eyes. "Jackson, Heath isn't like that anymore…mostly…let him help, okay?" she said before realizing that what she said probably wouldn't make sense to him as a five-year-old thinking about his four-year-old cousin. But luckily Jackson seemed to be able to supply them with a cover story for as long as the manticore's spray's effects lasted.

"So…did I…time travel here like on my cartoons?" he asked, slightly lowering the sweater. "I watched the one about how…how space can bend and…and…sometimes….people call fall through and see the future! I wanna learn how to build stuff like that too!" he said, getting a little more excited.

"Uh…yes…that's exactly what you did! But you can't let anybody else know about it – time travel rules." Frankie said, playing along with Jackson's idea and shooting glances toward the others to play along too. Jackson seemed more at ease with that idea, Frankie feeling him more relaxed in her hold on her lap.

"What cartoon for kids talks about quantum physics and stuff?" Clawd whispered to Draculaura who just shrugged. "One that Jackson would want to watch" she answered, giggling a little at their friend's nature.

Jackson laughed a little but still looked warily at Heath as his cousin stepped closer. "You sure he's really okay?" he asked warily of Frankie, the green-skinned girl finding it touching how much he automatically assumed her to be a figure of trustworthy information. Frankie nodded, deciding to quickly hand Jackson over to Heath before either one could properly protest. Heath quickly got a proper hold on Jackson, both of them looking at each other with wide eyes before Jackson's face morphed into one of thoughtfulness that the others had seen on his face several times before when he was pondering observations, experiments, equations and other theories.

Jackson ran a hand through Heath's hair, causing Abbey and the others to involuntarily flinch at the idea that Heath might lose control and burn his cousin on accident. Jackson may be part elemental and be more resistant to heat and burns than other humans, but at his age, they didn't know how well he could handle such a thing. But Heath stood very still as Jackson messed around with his hair for a second or two longer before pulling away and placing his hands on his face, the others snickering at the sight the two made. "Huh…I guess you must be Heath." Jackson concluded, Heath smiling at him as the others let out relieved sighs. "Do you still hate me?" he asked, his voice quivering a little at the end. Heath's smile diminished a little as he brought Jackson back to the bed to have him sit on it.

"Aw, Jackson. I never really hated you. I promise." He said, rubbing his hair carefully to not brush over his already-forming bruise. Jackson didn't seem convinced, but smiled back at Heath. Heath pulled him into a tight hug, holding him until Jackson winced. "Ow…" Jackson said, causing Heath to pull back a little to look him over.

"What's wrong? Too tight?" Heath asked, afraid he might have been too hard with his more fragile cousin. Jackson rubbed his chest a little before grabbing the pillow in the same way he had been holding Draculaura's sweater.

"Jackson, what's wrong?" Frankie said. Jackson shook his head and refused to answer, Frankie placing a hand on his shoulder. "Come on Jackson. You can tell us." She said, reverting to how she spoke to him when he first woke up.

"Nah…he's stubborn. Always has been." Heath said, standing back up as Jackson tried to hide beneath the pillow. "If I remember right, he never liked having someone have to bring him to the doctor's office, right Jackson?" Heath said, turning back to address Jackson.

"No! I'm not…I can be as tough as you too." he said, Heath sighing as he looked back at Frankie. "He still doesn't like to let us know when his human side makes things more difficult in ways monsters like us don't have to deal with as much."

Frankie sighed, realizing that he was right and wondering how to pry what was wrong out of him. Dracularua walked over to the side of the bed, gently pushing Heath out of the way and crouching so she was eye-level with Jackson. "Jackson, look at me please." She said, Jackson shaking his head. "Jackson…" she said, a more authoritative tone to her voice that Jackson understood, listening to her and looking over the edge of the pillow at her. The others waited for her to say something else, but she whispered something to him that even Clawd couldn't quite make out, her eyes glowing a little before Jackson let go of the pillow and Draculaura pulled it away.

"Whoa…what was that D'?" Clawd asked, not having actually seen her use her family's vampire abilities on anyone else before. "He needed to be calmed down and we need to make sure he's alright. It's just a little trick my father taught me a long time ago. He's perfectly alright, but it doesn't last long so ask him what you need to ask him Frankie before it wears off." She said to her friend, Frankie as stunned as Clawd.

Shaking her head to focus on Jackson, she gently turned him to look at her. "What's wrong Jackson? What hurts?" she asked. Jackson whimpered a little before answering, whether from discomfort or fighting the effects of Draculaura's efforts, she couldn't be too sure. "I don't feel too good. " he said, rubbing his chest. "I think someone dropped something on me…an elephant." He mumbled, making them all realize just how young he was at the moment with the way he spoke to her.

"Okay…um…anything else?" Frankie asked, not quite sure how to help him. Jackson looked up at her, unable to keep from answering still. "My head hurts too…you sure Heath didn't sit on me again?" he asked, looking over to Heath. Frankie gasped, realizing that Holt might have gotten hurt after all when she crushed the seat down on him in the auditorium.

"No, you're okay Jackson." she said, trying to keep him calm by not answering. She looked to Abbey and then to Heath, who had taken the pillow from Draculaura and was attempting to get Jackson comfortable on it again. "But why don't you let me and our friends look you over to make sure, okay?" she asked, Jackson giving a silent nod.

Frankie walked over to her friends, pulling them away from the table to talk with them briefly, Jackson still under Draculaura's charm and remaining still on the bed. "Guys, what do I do if I did hurt him?" she said, Clawd and Draculaura looking at her curiously. She hastily explained what happened in the auditorium. "So now I'm worried I might have done something, you know, internally or something…" she said, wringing her hands.

"I'm sure you didn't Frankie. The awareness of that probably didn't register immediately with him since he was more concerned with the fact that there were a bunch of strangers around him in a strange place when he woke up." Heath said. "But you can look him over if it'll make you – and him – feel better."

Abbey nodded. "Is good idea. Jackson still not comfortable with us. This show him we want to only take care of him." she said, Frankie taking a deep breath and walking back over to see Jackson looking more like himself as Draculaura's assessment that the effects would be short-lived proved accurate.

"Okay Jackson. I'm just gonna look you over quick to make sure you're in perfect shape. Heath will be right here to help, right Heath?" she said, pulling him over to stand next to her as she smiled at Jackson who nodded sleepily.

"Do you know what you're looking for?" Heath asked. "I know you've read all those pamphlets on human health from that class you made us take, but I dunno Frankie…" Heath said, his own knowledge about the basics his parents had told him over the years not exactly the most reliable. But Frankie just shushed him and tried to remember all the steps from the pamphlet she read on basic human health. Jackson was tickled a few times as she ran her hands over where she thought he might have had the chair hit him, only finding a bruise on his back that wasn't too bad, but probably felt a lot worse to a five-year-old not used to that sort of thing. She thought she had pretty much covered all that she needed to do to assure herself and the others that he was just fine, if not very comfortable from where his bruise was on hm. But Jackson looked at her curiously before saying, "You're not done…you didn't use the thingy…" he said.

"The 'thingy'…"Frankie said, turning to Heath for clarification but he seemed just as confused. Jackson nodded once before speaking again. "Yeah…the thingy the doctors always use at the checkups." He said, not really helping Frankie figure out what he meant. Heath looked around the room before spotting something he thought might be what Jackson was talking about behind where Clawd leaning against the tiny sink and counter.

"This what you're talking about Jackson?" he asked, holding up the stethoscope. Jackson nodded and Frankie laughed. "Jackson, I don't think we need to use the 'thingy'. But if it makes you feel better I will." She said, finding amusement in how her boyfriend at five still pointed out the little things to her. She took it from Heath and placed the ends in her ears before laying the other piece on Jackson's chest. "It's cold!" he said, squirming a little and Frankie pulled back to warm the cold metal before repeating things again.

"Everything sounds good Jackson." she said, smiling at him. "I think you must be excited though with all your friends here." She teased him. Jackson laughed a little, shaking his head no. "Sure, you say no but your heart is awfully fast." She said, taking delight in seeing Jackson start to open up more with them. He shook his head again in the negative but Frankie tickled him on the side of the neck. "Yes it is. It's going _ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump_" she said in time with the speed of his heartbeat she could hear through the stethoscope, bopping him on the nose before putting the stethoscope on the bed.

"I told you that you would be just fine with us. You can trust us Jackson." she said to him softly, patting his head affectionately as he often did to her. Jackson smiled at her and Heath, letting Frankie pull him into a seated position to help him off the bed. "Now, let's go find you a new shirt to replace the one that got all dirty." She said, Jackson taking her hand as she lead him and the others out of the nurse's office and back out into the school.

* * *

"So where do you think we can find him a shirt that'll fit him?" Clawd asked as they walked down the hall, Jackson seemingly more content with being around the others. They guessed that he hadn't had a lot of encounters with other monsters at this age, but it seemed like he was adapting well.

"We could always call his parents to come deal with him." Heath said, but immediately received unamused looks from Abbey and Draculaura. "What? I'm lookin' out for him, honest…I'm not sure how to take care of him. I can barely take care of myself." He defended himself, the girls pausing as they took in the genuine tone of his voice as he spoke of his cousin's well-being. "Besides, they're gonna find out eventually what happened if we show up with him like this." he said.

"Well, I think we should stop by and see if Cleo has anything that might fit in that pile of materials she and Clawdeen were looking over earlier this week." Frankie said, Jackson shrugging as she looked at him since he wasn't sure who she was talking about. "There must be something for him to wear – no offense, Draculaura, but a fuzzy pink sweater doesn't seem to suit him." she said, the said garment having been discarded several times by Jackson as they attempted to get him to cover himself with the shrug sweater. They had given up on that idea soon enough, but having Jackson wander around with no shirt was not a good idea. But Jackson didn't seem to mind the lack of clothing, wanting to go exploring as he pleaded to the others.

The others nodded and they were shortly approaching the room Cleo had said she and Ghoulia and Clawdeen were working. "Now don't worry about meeting these girls. They're really actually very nice, okay Jackson?" Frankie said, Clawd and Heath visibly refraining from making any comments on the others' personality quirks that might set him off. Jackson nodded and Frankie walked inside, only to have to pull Jackson behind her as clothes were being tossed around the room in a flurry of motion from Cleo.

"How did they all shrink?!" the mummy screeched in distress as she looked through the pile with Ghoulia, Clawdeen standing off to the side as she watched Cleo have her meltdown. Seeing the others come in, the werewolf gave them a suffering look and a small wave. "Cleo, we have company so calm down before you scare off the kid" she said, seeing Jackson peering out from behind Frankie with a nervous expression on his face.

"Oh! Hello guys…" Cleo said, dropping one handful of clothes. "Can you believe this? The Home Ick class volunteered to help wash these for me and now they've all shrunk! I can't use these except for dolls or something!" Cleo ranted, not exactly following Clawdeen's suggestion but refraining from tossing any more clothes around and frightening Jackson any further.

"That's Cleo – don't worry. She's just always cranky." Heath said to Jackson, scooping him up into his arms to carry him further into the room, realizing that they might otherwise be standing in the doorway for a while. Cleo huffed at Heath's remark but a moan from Ghoulia kept her from proving any truth to Heath's statement. Heath set Jackson down onto one of the tables next to a pile of shrunken clothes, shirts and bottoms all with different colors from how the dyes had run a little in the wash. It was apparent that the monsters Cleo had most likely berated into doing her work for her had decided to get a little payback.

As Heath eased Jackson's concerns, pulling out one of the smaller shirts to see if it might actually be just what they were looking for, the others made their way into the room. Clawdeen walked over to her best friend and her brother, mouthing 'save me' to them and earning a giggle from Draculaura. "Hey, that's not so bad. Right Jackson?" Heath said, helping his cousin put on the blue and white shirt, the white looking like clouds against the blue but fitting him perfectly nonetheless. Jackson made a face and pulled at the shirt. "But it's a girl's shirt…and blue…I like yellow." He said, diving into the pile of clothes like it was a pile of leaves, causing Heath to scramble to make sure he didn't fall off the table. Ghoulia laughed as Jackson reemerged closer to her with a triumphant smirk. "Ah ha! I got one!" Jackson said, holding up over his head a yellowish shirt that had green blobs along the entire left side, looking like lava lamp bubbles as some held onto the blue dye more than the other marks that had blended into the yellow. Ghoulia moaned a greeting as Jackson noticed her and gently took the shirt from his hand to help him put it on. It was a little bigger than the blue shirt but Jackson seemed pleased with his find.

"Okay Jackson – you look great. Let's get you off the table now." Heath said, making to grab ahold of Jackson to ease him back onto the floor. But Cleo gasped and bolted over to the table, causing Jackson to press himself into Heath's side as he cowered under the mummy's gaze.

"Ease up Cleo. You're scaring him." Clawd said, but Cleo didn't respond as she looked over Jackson and then back to the pile of clothes. Abbey groaned as she realized what Cleo was thinking. "Oh no. Not good idea right now Cleo. We not knowing how long will last." She said, shaking her head and Frankie catching on. Cleo obviously intended to make use of what she still had left for her upcoming talent show fashion walk, Jackson coming to her aid.

"Exactly. That's why we should do it now and take pictures or film it!" she said, turning back to try and get Jackson to come out of Heath's hold. "You can help us out Jackson! You can be our model…won't that be fun?" she said, smiling at him. Jackson shook his head and held tighter to Heath.

"No. Playing dress up is for girls. You'll give me cooties." He said, earning chuckles from the guys. Cleo shot them a withering glare but turned back to Jackson. "Aw, but Jackson. We're your friends. Can't you help me and Frankie out?" she asked. Frankie stopped smiling at Cleo's behavior as she processed what she said.

"Wait Cleo – I have nothing to do with…" she started to say but Jackson did exactly as Cleo had hoped he would react at hearing Frankie's need for his help. "F-Frankie needs me to help out? Well,….okay…" he said gloomily, but Cleo's smile widened and she pulled Jackson out of Heath's embrace quicker than Heath could respond and before Frankie could say anything else.

"Ooooh, this will be so much fun!" Draculaura said, bouncing on her tiptoes. "What? It's true." She said, when her boyfriend gave her a curious look, Clawdeen also seeming to find the prospect of dressing up a little Jackson to be fun. "He'll look so cute and adorable…" the vampire squealed, pulling her friend over to the clothes piles to start putting together outfits for a little boy with what Cleo had started to work on. Frankie covered her mouth as Jackson made another face at Cleo while she was holding up different pieces to see how they would look together, finding herself agreeing with Dracularua's observation despite their situation.

Heath was the only one Jackson would allow to help him try on the outfits that had rapidly started to line up on the floor as the girls started putting designs together. Even Abbey made some fawning motions over Jackson as he came out in a blue and white outfit that made her remark on how handsomely he would fit in at her village with that kind of an outfit. Nearing the seventh outfit that Jackson modeled for the girls while Ghoulia filmed him and took pictures, Deuce came running into the room.

"Oh, good. There you guys are." He said, walking over to Clawd standing in the corner as far from the girls as possible. "I came back up after talking with coach and you guys weren't in the nurse's office. I thought we might be having to play hide and seek again." He said, leaning up against the wall.

"Sorry Deuce, we kinda got a little caught up in things." Frankie apologized, motioning over to Jackson. She hadn't thought that it had been that long since the group split up, but apparently long enough for Deuce to have missed them completely.

"Hey buddy, what's wrong?" Heath's question startled Frankie into turning back to check on Jackson. She could see that his pale skin had gone even paler than normal as he stood completely still, staring straight ahead. Heath gave him the barest of touches to his shoulder, causing Jackson to jump and turn to him. "Jackson? What are you scared of, huh?" he said, allowing Jackson to launch himself into his side.

"S-S-S-Snakes…" Jackson said, pointing over to Deuce before abruptly pulling his arm back as though afraid Deuce might reach out for him. Heath looked over to Deuce with a sympathetic smile as the gorgon seemed hurt that his friend didn't want him to be anywhere near him. "Sorry Deuce. He's too young to have met a gorgon yet. He's just a little unsettled and doesn't know any better." He said, Deuce giving a small nod. Heath pulled Jackson in front of him, despite Jackson's attempts to remain behind him. "I thought you liked reptiles. You like chameleons right?" He asked Jackson, his cousin giving a tiny nod. "Well, he's not so bad either…just…don't take his glasses off." He said.

Deuce slowly approached where Jackson was clinging to Heath, kneeling down to talk with him. "Hey little dude. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you." He said, but Jackson continued to stare at the snakes on his head, making him a little uncomfortable too, which could be seen by the way the snakes gently twisted around a little on his head. Jackson leaned back into Heath as far as he could, tears starting to form in his eyes.

"No, no, no!" Jackson said, turning in Heath's hold and burying his face in his cousin's chest. "I don't wanna…" he said, Deuce standing up and putting a couple of steps between them in the hopes of calming Jackson down from a panic attack.

"Oh, please don't start wailing again…" Clawd mumbled, his ears flattening on his head in anticipation. His sister looked curiously at him but said nothing as Heath and Frankie worked to calm Jackson down.

"You are sure there is nothing else said about manticore attack in books?" Abbey asked as she patted Deuce's arm comfortingly. They could see how much his scaring Jackson depressed him, having told his friends how difficult it was for a lot of monsters, let alone normies, to get comfortable around gorgons. Deuce gave her a tight smile but didn't say anything, opting to stay where he was unless Heath or Frankie indicated for him to come over to where they sat with Cleo, Draculuara, and Ghoulia around Jackson.

"Nothing very helpful." Clawdeen said, giving them an apologetic look. "Most of the accounts we could find were from the late 1100s, early 1200s, and they talked about 'overcoming the manticore with a wash of renewal' like all that flowery language that time period wrote in."

"That could mean anything then…" Clawd whined. Deuce nodded, sighing as he took a seat in one of the few chairs in the room, moping over the day's events. Clawd sympathized with his friend. "Hey man. He doesn't mean anything by this. You know Jackson has no problem with you being you, especially since you helped him so much when he first transferred here." He said, Deuce giving a tiny nod, taking off his glasses to rub at his watery eyes, grateful that the others hadn't been able to see his tough guy exterior crack a little. But that seemed to be the wrong thing to do as Jackson screamed at the top of his voice. Deuce put his sunglasses back on to see what was going on, watching as Heath struggled to explain that Deuce wasn't about to do anything to him by taking his glasses off. But Jackson went limp and slipped through Heath's hold to slide to the floor, picking himself up and sprinting as fast as he could away from Deuce.

"Jackson! Come back!" Frankie yelled, running after him. She wasn't too concerned, since the door was shut and he couldn't reach the doorknob without some help. Jackson turned back around to see Frankie coming after him, looking around the room before a look spread across his face that the others recognized as him coming up with a plan. "Jackson…" Frankie said with a note of caution in her voice, stopping her chase to try and get him to calmly walk back over to her. Jackson bounced on his feet a couple of times in his nervousness before racing over to the wall and pulling off the old metal covering that barely held to the wall over the vent.

"Jackson, stop!" Frankie said as she tried to reach in after him and pull him out from where he had crawled inside. "This isn't a good idea Jackson. I know you wanted a 'long explore' but you'll hurt yourself in there." she shouted to him through the opening in the vent. She could still see him crawling a little ways down and detached one of her hands to see if she could coax him back over to her faster than crawling after him would accomplish. Her hand climbed up onto one of his legs, Jackson halting his movements as he felt it. She watched as he turned around to see who was behind him, spotting the detached hand. Jackson screamed again, shaking his leg to knock Frankie's hand off, screaming again as he backed away.

"Oh, Jackson! I didn't mean to scare you. It's okay!" Frankie said in a pleading tone, her hand coming back over to her so that she could reattach it. Jackson continued to scream in his confusion and fright as he watched Frankie put herself back together. She began to crawl in after him, spurring him to back away some more and not look where he was going. Frankie called out to him again but Jackson leaned back as he fell down another opening into the vents that lead down. "Jackson!" Frankie yelled, scurrying over as she heard him land with a thud and finding his silence far more terrifying than if he had still been screaming.

* * *

Frankie crawled back out of the vent as quickly as she could, Heath and Clawd pulling her out the rest of the way once her feet were out. "Where'd he go?" Heath asked, bending to look down and peer into the vent himself. Frankie looked on the verge of tears too in her panic.

"He fell down one of the shafts backwards. I couldn't hear him after that. I hope he didn't land on his head…" Frankie said, biting her bottom lip in her worry. Draculaura and Cleo gasped alongside Ghoulia and Clawdeen, Heath standing upright far quicker than he should have been able to.

"Okay…we need to figure out where that shaft leads and hope that you couldn't hear him because he was just too far away." Deuce said, Ghoulia nodding in agreement and moving to where she had put her computer down earlier. She typed away as fast as she could, pulling up the schematic that she still had on her computer of the layout of Monster High, pinpointing their room and suggesting that Jackson may have tumbled someone over by the gym area since it wasn't too far from their room and other vents tended to follow a similar pattern in other locations.

"That's a good place to start then. Let's go!" Frankie said, bolting out of the room with the others following her lead as they raced to the gymnasium. Casketball practice was almost over when they burst inside, prompting the coach to blow his whistle and get the team to pause in their drills.

"What are you doin' back here? I though you said you were lookin' for…" the coach started to say, but was interrupted as the girls shushed him, staring up at the ceiling as they tried to listen for any movements that might let them know where Jackson could have gotten dumped out of the shaft.

"What are you doin'?" the coach reiterated at a frustrated whisper, the other students also hushing as they attempted to figure out what was going on.

"I told you my friend got attacked by one of those creatures that got loose. Well, it turned him into a kid and now he's running around in the vents." Deuce whispered back, ignoring the strange look he was getting from his coach. "We think he might have made his way over to the ceiling of the gym…" he continued to explain. The coach just shook his head, not caring after working at the school for so long to question the strangeness of such a situation. Deuce shrugged but no one said anything else as they listened for another couple of minutes, Clawd and Clawdeen's ears at attention as they strained to hear any stray sound from above.

"I can't tell if he's above the gym guys…are we sure he didn't get dumped anywhere else?" Clawd said, Ghoulia pulling out her computer again to run her calculations for another possible location. She gave a soft moan and pointed over her shoulder to the wall, the pool on the other side.

"Oh no…" Heath said, his own face paling. Frankie looked at him with panic on her face, franticly blinking away tears. "Oh no? Why oh no? What's oh no?" she asked. Heath swallowed thickly as he thought of how to answer.

"Holt ended up taking all those swimming lessons he's so fond of 'cuz one time Jackson and I went to the beach with our parents… and we learned that Jackson couldn't swim very well…" Heath said, dread forming on his face at the thought of what might have happened to his tiny cousin.

"Oh my Ra!" Cleo gasped. "Come on then!" she shouted, urging Frankie and Heath out of their stunned state to run over to the pool. They took a shortcut through the locker rooms, running into Gil and Lagoona standing and talking in the entranceway before the rooms split into the ghouls' and guys' portions.

"Guys, have you seen…." Draculaura started to ask, but a loud splashing sound interrupted her question. Gil and Lagoona turned around to see what made the noise, Lagoona commenting, "I thought we were the last outta the pool…"

"Jackson!" Heath said, shoving his way through his group of friends to see if he could spot where his cousin had fallen in, the grate over one of the ceiling ducts swinging. The water was still rippling from where Jackson had fallen in, but he had sunk into the deep end and Heath couldn't see him. Gil and Lagoona caught on quick to what had made their friends so upset, diving into the pool after Jackson. Heath stood by the side of the pool, his hair flaming up in his anxiety as the seconds ticked passed and no one had resurfaced with his cousin. Frankie also looked terrified, only remaining out of the pool by her concerned friends who knew she might only make things worse by shorting herself out in the water.

"I got him!" Lagoona shouted from the other side of the pool breathlessly as she held Jackson's head above the water. "Help me get him out!" she shouted as she made his way to the wall and tried to lift him out, Gil resurfacing shortly afterward and swimming over to her.

Heath was there in a flash, his flame literally seeming to flash with intensity as he reached over to pull Jackson out of the water and steam resulted from where he touched the water. He dragged Jackson onto the concrete floor, laying him out as he continued to be still with his eyes closed. "Oh man...come on Jackson…" he said, looking over Jackson as Frankie and the others reached him.

"I don't think he's breathing." Lagoona said, climbing out of the water. "He must have swallowed too much water." She said, panic showing up on Heath's face. Frankie looked to Heath with wide eyes before leaning over as though to start breathing for him when Jackson coughed a few time, spurting water from his mouth. Gil reached over from where he was behind Heath to turn Jackson on his side so that he didn't choke on the water, Jackson coughing a few more times before he seemed to be able to breathe normally again. Jackson opened his eyes, looking up at his friends as they hovered over him before reaching out to Frankie who eagerly scooped him up and held him tightly to her.

"It's okay Jackson. You're okay." She soothed, rubbing his back as she spoke. Heath sighed as he realized his cousin was alright. He turned to Lagoona with a grateful look, Lagoona nodding in understanding as Heath thanked her.

"Jackson? You cold?" Frankie asked, pulling him away a little to look at him. Jackson started to breathe heavily, holding himself. "Jackson, what's wrong? Tell us Jackson!" Frankie said as Jackson started to shake, looking over to Heath for help. But Heath seemed just as confused and worried.

"I d-don't feel right…like everythin'…bein' pulled…oooowww." Jackson said, whining at the end as he folded in on himself. Frankie picked him up and began to walk out as quickly as she could with Jackson in her arms whimpering. Jackson started to cry from whatever pain he said he was in, Heath grabbing him from Frankie's arms to sprint the rest of the way to the nurse's office before the others caught up. it was yet again without the nurses inside, Heath wondering just when they were in the office and how much he could have actually used their help at the moment.

He plopped Jackson down on the bed as he continued to grimace, feeling helpless as he watched his cousin squirm and not knowing what from his fall could have caused this reaction. "Okay Jackson. Stay right here and don't move. I'll get something to help – I got this." Heath said, although lacking the usual bravado he typically put into his signature statement as he rushed over to the cabinets and pulled on them to get them to open, finding most of them to be locked. But hearing his cousin whine again in pain, he decided to face the punishment for destruction of school property and broke through the cabinets with his flame, rifling through the medicines until he saw one he recognized as alright for humans to take. At this point, the others showed up, Frankie rushing over to Jackson's bedside to comfort him as he blinked up at her without his glasses.

"Jackson you need to take some of this medicine, okay?" Heath said, measuring out some of the medicine for him. "Come on – I know you hate it but it'll help." He said, offering the liquid medicine for him to drink. Jackson shook his head, Heath huffing in frustration, but forcing it into Jackson mouth when he opened it to yell again. Jackson coughed a little after swallowing the stuff, but it seemed to ease a little of Jackson's discomfort after a few minutes.

"What was that you gave him?" Frankie asked as she continued to stroke Jackson head with each little whimper or moan he made.

"It's a pain reliever humans take – luckily the school nurses apparently only buy the kind for little kids anyway." Heath said, showing her the container with a smiley face sun on it. "Somebody ought to tell them that they need to update their supply cabinet…" he said, chuckling a little.

"No kidding…more like get a new cabinet." Abbey said as she looked at the mess Heath had made in his haste. "You and Holt very much alike in destructiveness. Hope Jackson appreciates this when he back to normal." She said, Heath nervously chuckling as he took in the damage he made with scorch marks here and there along the cabinets. Frankie smiled down at Jackson who seemed to be drifting off to sleep. "I'm sure he will guys. He always does." She said, letting Jackson hold her hand as he shifted around a little more before yawning and closing his eyes.

"We should try and get him out of those wet clothes soon." Cleo whispered to Frankie, Deuce standing behind her and nodding along with his girlfriend. "Not just to save the clothes but so he doesn't catch a cold." She said at the look Clawdeen gave her.

"Okay, let's go see if we can find him something else to wear from your stash." Clawd said, dragging his sister, girlfriend and Cleo out of the room before any arguments upset Jackson and kept him from finally sleeping and giving them all a break. However, as they shut the door behind them, they startled Jackson from his dozing state a little and he moaned from whatever was bothering him.

"Hey Jackson. We're here." Frankie whispered gently to him as he looked up at her, finding herself unable to think about how adorable he looked. Jackson whimpered a little, sneezing once and setting part of the pillowcase on fire. Heath quickly put it out before Jackson had even realized he'd let loose some of his latent pyronic abilities that he hadn't been able to tap into at the age he was currently.

"Hey, maybe that's a sign Jackson's getting back to his old self." Heath whispered to Abbey. "Holt could do that at five but not Jackson."

Jackson looked up to Heath, apparently overhearing the last part of what he said to Abbey. Heath nervously smiled at him, unsure what sort of reaction he was going to get from his scared cousin. Jackson sniffled a couple of times before wincing again and rolling away from Frankie who made to keep him still.

"Who's Holt?" Jackson asked Heath. "Mom and Dad talk about him too but they think I don't hear them when they whisper. I never seen him but…I think they might like him better than me…nobody wants me to hang out with them" he said, burrowing his face into the pillow and shaking as he began to cry.

"Oh, no…Jackson…no" Heath said in a gentle voice, crouching to talk with Jackson. Frankie also looked concerned, having asked Jackson when she first met him and he had seemed genuine in his response that he hadn't even heard of Holt Hyde. She hadn't brought that particular period up again to dwell on, since both sides of her boyfriend seemed to be adjusting with their awareness of the other. But Jackson apparently had probably hoped that by denying knowing anything at all, the topic of Holt might just disappear if he tried hard enough.

"Jackson. Holt and you just have a lot in common…that's why you sometimes hear your mom and dad talk about him." Heath said, impressing Abbey with his surprisingly smooth recovery and his caring tone. Jackson looked between Heath and Frankie before yawning again, resisting the medicine's effects that Heath had given him. "But…but…I get nightmares about him I think. I dunno if it's really him but I swear he must be the one always whispering behind me in the mirror to try and scare me. But I never see him. Don't tell mom - she'll think I'm crazy..." he admitted, looking back up at Heath with wide eyes at the last part. But when nobody called him crazy, he continued to talk, although being so sleepy might have had something to do with how truthful he was being too. "And…sometimes, I think maybe I walk around in my sleep too 'cuz of the nightmares. Daddy says he does that too, but I don't like the nightmares…" Jackson mumbled, leaving Heath not sure what to say.

"Then remember that you can have a part in those nightmares too Jackson." Frankie said, rubbing his back. "The nightmares won't go away, but don't try to forget them either…no matter how scary you think they might be…they might be trying to tell you something you wouldn't think of on your own." She suggested, trying to explain things in a simple way to the five-year-old. She hoped that she might get the chance to give that same piece of advice to Jackson if he still felt the same way.

Jackson gave a tiny nod and Frankie smiled at him, laughing at how he yawned again. "Go to sleep Jackson. There won't be any nightmares while we're here." She said, Jackson believing her assurances and rolling back over to face her as he closed his eyes again. Within the next couple of minutes, Jackson was snoring on the bed with Frankie's hand clutched in his own.

As soon as they heard the first snore, they all breathed a sigh of relief. "Dudes, that was ridiculous." Deuce said, sitting down on the windowsill beside Ghoulia who nodded emphatically in agreement. "Who knew that he would be so difficult as a five-year-old?" he asked, rubbing a hand across his face as he let himself relax a little after the stress of the day.

"He's difficult at his proper age. It comes with having two personalities I guess." Gil said as he and Lagoona stood closer to the doorway. "Um…if everything's okay, we're gonna go get out of our bathing suits and into real clothes now." He said, bringing to the others' attention that they had raced over from the swimming pool in their gear to make sure that Jackson was alright. Frankie nodded and let loose the stitches in the hand Jackson was holding to walk over to Lagoona and gave her a hug. Lagoona blushed from the praise, Gil laughing at her reaction. "It's what you get for being the hero today." He said to her, finding her nervousness to be cute as Frankie thanked her for coming to Jackson's rescue. "He's right though. Thanks." Heath said, verbally giving his friend his thanks for rescuing his cousin. Frankie pulled away to sit beside the bed again, reattaching herself to her hand. Lagoona gave her a sincere smile before she and Gil left the room much quieter than Cleo had done.

"Any idea what to do now?" Deuce asked, turning to Ghoulia, but she simply shrugged. "Yeah…I thought you might say that." He said. "I'm gonna go wait outside in case he wakes up again and sees me. Don't want to give him another scare today." Deuce said, standing up to walk out.

"Deuce. He would not want you to just leave." Abbey said, doing her best to console the gorgon over Jackson's reaction to him earlier. "He see you when you come in with everybody else and did not yell, so is progress." She said. But Deuce just shook his head, not encouraged by her little speech and walking out of the room. Frankie looked to Abbey and then to Ghoulia, the two getting up to follow their friend and try to get him to talk.

"Maybe you should see what's taking so long for the four of them to pick out a pair of pants and a shirt." Heath said to Frankie. "I mean, I can guess they're probably arguing over which would look better on him, but we shouldn't let him sit in these wet things." Heath said. Frankie nodded, although reluctant to pry her hand away from Jackson. She and Heath eased him out of his wet clothes slowly, pausing when he would seem to wince or when he groaned in his sleep.

"I wish we could tell what's causing him pain like that." Frankie said as Heath took his jacket off to use as a blanket for Jackson. Heath shrugged but a commotion out in the hallway that sounded a lot like Cleo and Deuce having one of their loud arguments had them both walking over to peer out into the hallway.

"Here, take these before they change their minds again." Clawd said, shoving clothes into Frankie's hands.

"What's the matter with them?" Heath asked as he saw Cleo standing with her hands on her hips as she stared down her boyfriend. Clawd shook his head as he looked over her shoulder briefly before answering them. "Cleo is cheering Deuce up. Can't you tell?" he sarcastically asked. "She means well, but Deuce has had this insecurity ever since I met him. I doubt just yelling at him to stop worrying will make much of a difference…but hey, now he's not focusing on Jackson being afraid of him." he said. Frankie sighed as she watched Cleo practically stalk over to Deuce who had turned his back to her, grabbing his shoulder to spin him around.

"Cleo… I told you, I…" he started to argue with her again, but was surprised when his girlfriend simply wrapped her arms around her boyfriend, holding him tightly but not saying anything else. Deuce slowly returned the embrace lightly, before giving in and holding her just as tightly as she held onto him.

"I know you have this doubt that you might do something to one of us or that we'll start to pull away because of what gorgons can do…but I love you Deuce." Cleo said, looking at his face as best she could from her position. "You can learn to control your abilities and we trust you. Let us be there for you like you always tell Jackson to do." She said, pulling away. "No wonder the two of you are such good friends. And he will still be your friend once things are back to how they should be with him."

Deuce gave her a small smile, but her words had the desired effect and he seemed to be less tense, the snakes on his head easing up on their hissing. The others sighed in relief, the girls smiling as the couple talked – or yelled – things out. "Now that you're okay, think you can help me and…" Heath started to ask his friend, but was cut off as Jackson gave out a bloodcurdling yell and an orange glow that signaled something had caught on fire came from behind him. He and Frankie rushed back inside, the others not too far behind them as Heath worked to get through the flames that had formed a barrier in the entrance to the room with the Jackson, flailing a little and knocking over the tiny radio the nurses kept on one of the shelves and turning it on. Once the flames were diminished enough to simply stamp out, they all raced inside, gasping as they saw the bed charred but empty.

"Oh my ghoul! How can this be happening?!" Frankie shouted, unable to get herself to move, the others looking over Frankie's shoulder. "Did he…did he…spontaneously combust?" Frankie squeaked, holding onto Heath's arm. Heath shook his head and looked curiously at the marks on the bed. "He couldn't make that much of a flame. I doubt even Holt could."

"I couldn't do what?" Holt said, startling them all as he popped up from the floor on the other side of the bed. "What am I doin' in here…and where are my clothes?" He asked, treating them all to the rare sight of a blush forming on his face when he was out. "I wouldn't mind it so much if I knew…"

"And, he's back." Abbey said, rolling her eyes as the others also were relieved. Holt looked at them all curiously, addressing Frankie directly. "Where'd I go? I was talking with Operetta and then…oooh, yeah…somethin' wasn't right but that's about all I got. Pretty sure I had pants then though…" he said, Heath chuckling.

"Okay Holt. Just give me a minute and I'll go get Jackson's spare clothes from his locker." Deuce said, smiling at the return of his friend. Holt grimaced, but this time they were pretty sure it wasn't from any actual pain as he stayed behind the bed to talk with them and keep covered. "Aw man. Not that dorky outfit. I ain't wearin' that!" Holt complained.

"It's that or go naked." Deuce said, but regretted it when Holt shrugged and looked as though he was about to stand up. "No!" a chorus of shouts responded to his movements, causing Holt to laugh.

"I ain't that ugly…promise." He laughed. "But either give me another option or I'll have to come up with one on my own." He smirked, Frankie blushing as he looked over to her.

Clawd picked up the tiny radio, causing Holt's eyes to widen. "No, I didn't mean…" he started to say, realizing his mistake as the werewolf shook his head. "Sorry Holt. Just for a little while." Clawd said, not sounding completely apologetic at having to put away his friend's more unreasonable side, although Frankie looked guilty enough for all of them as he switched the blaring device off. A flash of flame and Jackson was back with them, blinking confusedly around before glancing down at himself. "Ah! What happened?! What the heck did Holt do?!" He screeched, a blush forming on him.

"Holt didn't do anything – you actually decide to strip." Heath said, Jackson looking over to Frankie for clarification.

"The manticore attacked us remember? It's a long story, but you're back to yourself again and…apparently that doesn't include reverting to your clothed self." Frankie said to Jackson. But Jackson didn't seem to follow, most likely not listening after hearing how he and Frankie were attacked.

"That's right! Are you okay Frankie? Did it…" he started to say, unintentionally standing up a little more before Frankie coughed and he realized what he was doing, crouching back down immediately and receiving several laughs at his embarrassment.

"Wait there dude. I'll go get your spare clothes." Deuce said, Jackson nodding and sending his friend a grateful look as Deuce left the room. "Hey, how come he knows your locker combination and you didn't tell me?" Heath asked, looking a little insulted. Jackson rolled his eyes before sending an impatient look to his cousin. "Because you'll put something stupid in there." he answered, the others finding some validity behind his reasoning.

Heath made to protest but Jackson continued. "Heath, I asked you to just hold my seat in the creepateria while I got a drink and came back to discover you had added a hot pepper to my sandwich – not exactly the kind of trust-building exercise that would convince me to let you handle all my stuff." He said, Heath's look shifting from irritation to one that considered what Jackson was saying.

"True…it was worth it though. You should'a seen the look you made when you bit into that pepper." Heath said fondly. "How was I supposed to know you'd start smoking from the mouth for real?" he asked, thinking over how his cousin's fire abilities seemed especially sensitive to the spicier forms of food. That must have been why he wasn't very fond of anything spicy while Holt couldn't seem to get enough. But as he mused, Jackson huffed and shook his head at his cousin. "It's a good thing we're family. I'd hate to see what you'd do to me if I wasn't." he said, snapping Heath out of his thoughts.

"Hey, did you incinerate my jacket too?" he asked, walking over to the bed despite Jackson's protests to give him privacy, although having the rest of his friends continue to linger in the doorway wasn't exactly private either.

"Like you said, we're family. I'm just looking for my jacket. You were using it as a blanket." Heath said with humor in his voice, spotting his jacket on the floor over by the windowsill. "Huh…you must've kicked it off of you before you had your meltdown." He said, picking it up and checking it over before putting it back on once he determined it was okay enough for him to wear. Abbey laughed at her boyfriend as he goofily smiled at her, walking back over to the others.

"Um…this is…awkward. Could you guys…not…stand there and stare at me? Or at least explain what happened and why I have no clothes on?" Jackson asked, Frankie and the others launching into all that had happened until Deuce arrived with Jackson's spare clothes.

"Thanks Deuce." Jackson said with relief in his voice, grabbing them from Deuce's outstretched hand as he held out to him the bag with the clothes from as close as he felt comfortable getting to his naked friend.

"We'll leave you to change then." Clawd said, taking the lead as the others walked back out into the hallway to wait for him to change into his clothes. Once they shut the door, the girls couldn't keep their laughter contained anymore and giggled at the sight Jackson had made.

"What guy keeps a spare outfit in his locker?" Clawdeen asked, curious to know why Jackson would do something like that. She could understand the idea, having had a quick change ready just in case in her own locker for a while.

"The kind that has to deal on a daily basis with messes like Holt makes, I guess." Frankie said. "Or in case he makes a mess in Mad Science again and needs to change." She said, shrugging a little. They heard the door open and turned to see Jackson step out in a pair of jeans and a green shirt with yellow stripes across his chest. Frankie looked curiously at him, liking the change in outfit style, although she did laugh at the lack of footwear.

"I know…but I didn't think I'd have to bring an extra pair of shoes with me too." Jackson said, blushing a little again. "But this'll have to do for now until I get home." He said, the group walking to the front entrance of the school to finally head home.

"I wonder if they ever got all the creatures back into the cages." Draculaura said in passing, noticing a lack of creatures running around. "I guess Venus did her part and helped get them back in one spot again…but I'm definitely not taking cryptozoology as an elective." She said, the others agreeing with her.

"Aside from the barefoot style, this is a different pace for you." Cleo remarked, Jackson blushing a little. "It looks good. How come you've never worn it before? Or had another of your yellow shirts and sweaters in your locker?" she asked. Jackson looked a little out of his element discussing fashion but shrugged anyway. "I do. Deuce grabbed the backup to my backup in case I was having a particularly bad day. But it works." He said, Frankie grabbing ahold of his arm to lean into him as they walked.

"You're just full of surprises today." She said. "And I'm not exaggerating at all. I think we could all do with no more surprises from you today." She said with a smile on her face, Jackson looking at her with an expression that echoed his lack of any comprehension about what she was talking about.

"That sounds like a plan. We can all talk about this tomorrow." Abbey said, the others giving their agreement with taking a break from everything that had happened today. She split from the group to head over to the headmistress' office to wait for her to return and give her a ride home as Headmistress Bloodgood often did for her ward. Cleo and Deuce also split from the group, Cleo making sure to text Lagoona and Gil that Jackson was back to normal and they were all heading to their homes.

"Heath…" Jackson said to his cousin before he made to head over to the waiting area for the buses. "I hate to ask, but…you've got your driver's permit from driver's ed, right?" Jackson asked, Heath's face brightening without the use of his flame as he picked up on Jackson's train of thought and nodded. "I'm kinda stiff right now and my feet are going to slide off the petals without shoes. Could you…" he started to ask, but Heath nodded again, this time his hair igniting briefly as Jackson sighed and handed his keys to his cousin. Heath took them and practically sprinted over to where he knew his cousin's car to be parked. Frankie giggled and felt her boyfriend's forehead.

"You sure you're okay, willingly letting Heath drive you home? You could've asked me." She said, but Jackson shook his head as they slowly followed Heath, waving goodbye to Clawd, Draculaura, Clawdeen and Ghoulia. "Then there would still be the problem of leaving one car behind. Besides, you've probable had enough of me today with all I –and Holt – put you guys through. Heath has to put up with mem some more." Jackson said, giving Frankie a kiss on the check. She smiled and gave him a hug before he climbed into the passenger's seat, watching as he gestured with his hands to direct Heath's actions. She gave the car a wide berth as she waved to them, impressed by how well Heath seemed to be handling things. She sighed and thought about how normal the rest of the day had seemed compared to the last couple of hours, hoping that there wouldn't be too much of a surprise waiting for them all the following day.

* * *

The next day was as uneventful as they were used to, Holt making an appearance and letting his displeasure at how he was put away the previous day be known. But luckily the damage he had caused to the school, as well as Heath's, had been overlooked in favor of treating the recapture of the escaped creatures as a success. Still, that didn't mean Jackson's friends didn't watch him carefully, especially when he was Holt. In particular, Lagoona and Gil hadn't left him any real space during Holt's swimming period. When he asked why they kept hovering, they weren't sure how to explain everything to him and suggested he wait for Frankie to explain. Holt hadn't been thrilled to hear he would have to wait when he knew the two water monsters could just as easily explain, but conceded that Frankie would be the most likely to know how to explain things to him best. This meant that their lunch period was spent having to keep Holt still long enough for them to detail all that had happened, learning that Jackson had been vague on the message he left for Holt. By the end of the day, Jackson was back, since Holt hadn't been able to successfully get himself away from math class once he realized he'd gotten himself stuck in the classroom. Frankie had laughed at her boyfriend's expression upon realizing that no amount of his boisterous pleading and attempts at other activities was going to make their teacher give in, pouting and simply letting Jackson take over what he thought of as the boring stuff. As school ended, the group decided to meet up in the cemetery in a little while to just hang out, hoping to take a break from the chaos that was still ongoing from the lingering effects the creatures had caused.

The girls had said that they would be joining them shortly, needing to finish up a part of Cleo's project for the talent show and letting the guys head out on their own. But Clawd and Gil also had to make a detour to pick up the material they'd missed from running around to find their friend the other day.

"Sorry guys. I'll meet you there in a minute or two." Heath said. "I gotta go help put in the new cabinets in the nurse's office. I don't think it'll take too long – I get the feeling the nurse's don't actually want my help but Headmistress Bloodgood is punishing us all." He said, earning laughs from Deuce and Jackson.

"Why do you need to put a new cabinet up in the nurse's office?" Jackson asked, not sure if he remembered all the details from his little adventure. Heath shot him a look before answering. "Because I broke it when I was getting medicine for you yesterday after you took a dive into the pool. I just made a bit of a mess. You're the one who scorched the bed but nobody seems to be bothered by that…." Heath said, shaking his head in disbelief, although knowing that his cousin couldn't really be held responsible for what the manticore did to him.

"Sorry Heath. You want me to come along too? I feel kinda bad about getting you in trouble." Jackson said, giving his cousin an apologetic look. But Heath shook his head no. "It's okay. I guess you're worth it." Heath said, placing a hand on Jackson's shoulders as he teased him.

"Gee, thanks. I can feel the love." Jackson said, smiling as Heath laughed and walked away to get his punishment over with as soon as possible. "Guess it's just you and me for a while. How come you didn't need to pick up any work you missed? I had some extra work too, especially since Holt decided to take over for the majority of the day again." Jackson grumbled, although if how Holt had been roughly put away after getting back to normal was true, he could understand why his other side might be more possessive than usual about keeping himself out a little longer.

Deuce shrugged as he walked alongside Jackson, the other boy observing how clipped the other's responses had been with him during the day. "Picked it up earlier like you did. I can pretend to care about my grades too." The gorgon said as they entered the cemetery.

"Okay. What's wrong?" Jackson abruptly asked, standing in front of his friend to get him to face him. "What else did I do that's got you mad at me? Just tell me." He said, but Deuce wouldn't look directly at him, choosing to reply with an emotionless 'nothing' that Jackson didn't believe at all.

"Look, just tell me while it's still the two of us out here. The others should be here in a few minutes, so you've got time." Jackson tried again, hoping to persuade his friend. Unfortunately, neither one of them noticed where they were walking, stepping over what looked like regular rope on the grass. Deuce stepped around Jackson, who gave a frustrated sigh. Jackson stepped up on one of the fallen tombstones, giving himself nearly a foot of height over Deuce as he reached out for one of his friend's shoulders. But one of the snakes on his head seemed to flinch and inadvertently attacked Jackson's hand. Jackson hissed and pulled his hand back, Deuce spinning back around to face him and stepping on the rope. Immediately, they learned the rope had been enchanted as it coiled around the two of them, pulling them close together as they tumbled to the ground.

"Oh, what now?" Jackson mumbled as he and Deuce struggled to free themselves from the rope. Jackson sighed as best he could with Deuce on top of him. "This must be what that guy from math class was working on for the talent show…" Deuce said. "Dude wouldn't shut up about his magic trick he wanted to do but had lost his prop."

"Well I think we found it for him." Jackson said, grunting as he tried to free one of his hands to burn the rope and get them untangled. But seeing no progress, he gave up and let his head fall back onto the ground. "Let's hope the others show up soon and can cut the rope." He said, groaning at the embarrassment the two of them were likely going to endure for a while, as if he hadn't already had to put up with all the pictures the girls had taken of him when he had been a little kid again. They remained quiet for a minute before Jackson started to laugh, the snakes on Deuce's head starting to bob in a rhythm and tickling his neck as they moved.

"Deuce, can you get them to stop? They're tickling me." Jackson said, giggling a little. Deuce moved his head a little to try and angle them away but it didn't seem to be helping. Jackson laughed a few more times, asking, "Why are they bobbing like that?"

"Dude, I'm stuck to you. Figure it out." Deuce said, some humor briefly entering his voice. Jackson made a small noise of recognition as he realized that Deuce was in a similar predicament that Franke had been in when they had been stuck in the catacombs and trying to keep her from getting wet from the underground water. He considered themselves lucky that he hadn't fallen on top of Deuce as the way they'd been standing when the rope sprung into action would have made their position all the more uncomfortable. Jackson took a second or two, still giggling now and then, to watch the way the snakes bobbed and realized that it was in time to his heartbeat, speeding up and slowing down in the same rhythm. "That's kind of embarrassing…" Jackson mumbled, but not saying anything else on that.

"Since we're stuck together, I might as well ask…" Deuce began, "How come you let Frankie listen to your heartbeat so often? Even as a kid?" he asked in a more teasing manner that Jackson was glad to hear from his friend after the more tense conversations throughout the day. Frankie had been known to snuggle up with her boyfriend and listen to his heartbeat, but Jackson didn't realize she had done it that often. He guessed that the others must have been able to immediately tell, even when he could not when they were just hanging out with their friends, how often she did that. "I dunno…I never really thought about it. Besides, she's my girlfriend so I guess there's nothing _too_ odd about it. I mean, it might be a little awkward if you and the guys wanted to, but…we are friends, so….um…" Jackson rambled, not sure what to say about this.

"It's fine dude. I was just curious. No need to get so embarrassed." Deuce said, laughing at his friend while Jackson attempted to make a denial before realizing Deuce would be able to literally hear his fib. "And Clawd doesn't need to ask you know…" he said. Jackson tried to look at Deuce's face but couldn't see him properly with the way they were tied. "What do you mean?" Jackson asked.

"He's a werewolf. He can hear it sometimes if he's close enough to you– you can tell when his ears twitch a certain way that you've probably seen him do. So can Clawdeen and probably Draculaura, but I don't know about the others and haven't exactly asked, ya know? Gil and Lagoona probably only can when everybody's in the water." Deuce said as he thought about it. "Don't worry dude, I'm not one of those kind of monsters who can do that when not getting to spend this quality time with you." Deuce sarcastically said, "But I can pick up on you with my heat-sensing abilities." He felt Jackson shift a little underneath him as his friend resumed trying to get the ropes to loosen up so he could get them free.

"That's a little…um, _weird_ to talk about….so, uh, do you guys…do that all the time? Not just with me, either?" he asked, Deuce doing his best to give Jackson some room to get a hand out. Deuce shook his head, Jackson laughing as the snakes tickled him again and stopping his movements. "No dude. It just happens every now and then when around normies – especially for those normies, even half-normies, - who hang around with monsters more often. Can't help it." Deuce said.

"Okay. Well…can you see if there are any knots in the rope. Maybe if we can…" Jackson said, attempting to move beyond the embarrassing topic, although Deuce didn't seem to be finding anything as embarrassing as much as Jackson. But he didn't get to finish his suggestion as Deuce interrupted him. "Can't do that Jackson. In case you hadn't noticed, I don't have my glasses on right now." He said, causing Jackson to pause in his movements as he realized Deuce wouldn't be overly helpful as he kept his eyes tightly shut until they could get out. Deuce gave a dry laugh, "Yeah…thought that might make you reconsider." He said gloomily, reverting back to his attitude that he'd had all day. Jackson thought about what he could remember of what happened while he was miniature again, finding the glimpse of a memory of Deuce standing away from him in the corner of the room.

"Deuce…what happened yesterday? Like you said, there are just some things you can't help. And you know I understand better than anyone not being able to fully trust yourself with all that you are. Holt can be manipulative - even to Heath - and he has quite a mean streak, but I know that on some level that's me too and there's always the chance that something will go really wrong. So just talk to me, please? Come on Deuce" Jackson said, feeling Deuce tense up a little but was rewarded for his patience when Deuce finally answered his question. " You – little you – was afraid of me. I dunno if he knew about the whole stone thing, but he didn't handle meeting a monster with real snakes on his head very well." Deuce said. Jackson rolled his eyes, forgetting that Deuce probably wouldn't have been able to see it even if he still had his glasses on.

"Deuce…I may not have been around many monsters at that age but even you should know that little kids freak out when things get a little too hard to understand." Jackson said, resuming his struggles. "I wasn't aware of what to do so when in doubt, kids tend to hide or cry, or both. Imagine if I hadn't been overwhelmed. I probably would have pulled on them relentlessly to see if they were real or something. I do have a pet chameleon; I find reptiles just as interesting as anything else…" he said, stopping his motions to try and catch his breath.

"You okay dude?" Deuce asked. Jackson took a moment, nodding his head before realizing Deuce wouldn't see him. "Yeah. Still a little sore from shrinking and regrowing all over again in the span of a few hours. Not even a full night's sleep can help with those aches." Jackson said. "I heard I took a swim too." Jackson said.

"Yeah. Scared us all pretty good too." Deuce said. "You can swim now, right?" Deuce asked, realizing he hadn't really seen his friend do much more than a few laps in the shallow area of the pool when it was him and not Holt out.

"Yeah Deuce, I can swim. Not great, but I don't sink like a rock anymore. Not right away." Jackson said. "I wouldn't get in the pool no matter what my dad tried – Mom used to say it was because fire elementals don't usually like to swim if they can avoid it. Just ask Heath- he'll get in the water but it's not his favorite thing to do. But I guess Holt took it as a challenge or something and so whatever he learned got passed over to me as muscle memory." Jackson said, resuming his struggles as he realized that their friends would be back soon and tried to avoid having to explain anything. "Heath asked me…the same thing…last night. Frankie too." Jackson said between breaths. "Man, I can almost get my left hand loose." He said.

"This would be some magic trick if that guy could pull it off." Deuce said. Jackson groaned as he was yet again unsuccessful. "Guy must think he's Houdini or something. That was the normie's name, right?" Deuce said, Jackson laughing.

"Yeah. That was…" Jackson started to say before gasping. "Dude, what's wrong?" Deuce asked, noticing the change in his friend. "You gotta talk to me Jackson, I can only hear what's goin' on." he said, alarmed at the change in his friend. Jackson sucked in as deep a breath as Deuce thought possible a couple of times before he felt his friend exhale and stop breathing. "Jackson, what's wrong?!" Deuce asked, his snakes waking up from the trance Jackson's heartbeat had put them into even as he struggled to get his hand free. He could hear Jackson continuing to not breathe and how his heartbeat began to pick up, unnerved by the fact that he could only hear that and not see why his friend had decided to do that to himself. He felt Jackson shake as his snakes tickled him and he fought to refrain from laughing, but he also felt the ropes loosen a bit around him and a moment later, smelled burning rope and the two were released.

Deuce rolled off of Jackson as his friend sucked in a breath. "Dude, are you out of your mind?" he asked, aware of how harsh that might sound to his dual-minded friend, but Jackson didn't seem to take offense.

"Houdini would do tricks like that…I read about them." Jackson said as he caught his breath, rolling over to kneel on the ground. He coughed once before he seemed to recover, spotting Deuce's glasses nearby and putting them into his friends hands so he could put them back on himself. "He would expand his chest when he inhaled so that when he exhaled all the air he'd been holding, the ropes would loosen enough for him to 'magically' escape from them." Jackson explained, sitting next to Deuce. "I did the same thing and got enough room with you on top of me to get my hand around the rope and burn it to free us. Had to use the hand one of your snakes tried to bite though." He said. "You need to relax, man. We're okay." Jackson said, patting his friend's shoulder as they saw the girls approaching with Clawd and Gil.

"Hey you two. Everything alright?" Cleo asked. "What were you two doing out here by yourselves to get yourselves so…sweaty?" she asked, eyeing her boyfriend and Jackson curiously.

"Some moron left one of his magic tricks out here and we got a little tangled up." Deuce said, motioning to the charred rope. Gil laughed as he went to pick up one of the pieces. "I wouldn't do that, dude. It tends to not want to come off." He warned him, Gil making a face at the idea, withdrawing his outstretched hand and backing away.

"So who got all wrapped up like Cleo?" Clawdeen asked, the said mummy rolling her eyes. Frankie laughed, along with Ghoulia at their friend's reaction.

"We both did. We got stuck together." Jackson said. "We just got out too - had to burn the rope." He said, rubbing his hand. "Not sure I did it the right way either. But we're free so I'll consider it all good." He mumbled, Frankie walking over to sit next to him as he shook his hand again from his improvised method of summoning a small flame.

"That must have been a funny sight. Sorry we missed it." Lagoona said, Dracularua attempting to hide her snickering behind her hand while her boyfriend had no issue with laughing at the image. Jackson rolled his eyes, Deuce not amused either.

"Anyway…what took you guys so long?" Deuce asked. Cleo looked to Ghoulia who moaned in acknowledgement at what her friend was asking her to do and pulled out her computer. She pulled up a file and pressed play, starting a presentation of all the pictures and clips that they had taken of Jackson while he had been modeling for them before moving into outfits on tiny mannequins, all to a musical background. Jackson let his head drop as he watched, the girls giggling as they told him how adorable he looked. Jackson turned to Deuce, whispering to him that he wouldn't mind spending some time as a statue at the moment, gaining a laugh from his friend. They shared a brief smile as they got through this obstacle, Frankie noticing immediately even if the others were more focused on Cleo's project.

"So you plan on showing this at the talent show instead of a fashion walk?" Clawd asked, Cleo nodding as she played around with a few more ideas to her friends.

"I wish I had thought of something to do for the show." Draculaura said. "I can't really claim a part in this. All I did was help share some pictures that I took." She mumbled. Frankie's eyes light up as she looked to Jackson, indicating she had an idea.

"I have a great idea!" she said to her boyfriend. "You should do a dance with Draculaura!" Frankie suggested, Jackson looking panicked at the idea while Draculaura seemed to like the idea. "Oh…uh…it won't be as spectacular as what you've put together Cleo, but you two danced wonderfully yesterday." She said, pulling Jackson up off the tombstone.

"You sure you wouldn't mind?" Draculaura asked Frankie, Jackson making a noise of protest at not being asked the question since he was the one who had been volunteered. Frankie shook her head, waving her hand nonchalantly at the prospect of finding any problem with the idea, Clawd laughing uncontrollably at the look on Jackson's face.

"Then let's get started. We need to practice. Oh, and I need to find the right dress and pick out the right suit for you and the right music…." Draculaura ranted, lost in thought as she dragged Jackson aside. Heath came running into the cemetery to find his friends, taking a minute to catch his breath. "Phew…sorry that took so long. I actually had to do more work than I though. But the cabinet's fixed." He said, smiling at his friends. Abbey laughed as she walked over and gave him a hug by way of greeting, not having seen him for most of the day. "What a handyman. Now you know how to fix what you break." She said, the others laughing as he made a face of mock insult at the idea that he would repeatedly break anything.

"Oh look, Heath's here!. Maybe we should do something else." Jackson said, backing away from Draculaura toward his cousin. "You know...don't want him to feel left out or anything." He said with a nervous smile.

"Nah uh…you don't get to leave that easily." Frankie said, Jackson shooting a pleading look to his cousin for help, but Heath just looked confused. He laughed though when he realized what was happening as Draculaura pulled out her phone and started playing another classical piece and pulling Jackson into position. But despite how much he would have liked to do otherwise, Jackson simply sighed and started to dance again with his girlfriend's friend. Frankie shot him a grateful smile as she watched them gracefully move about the graveyard. She thought about how someday she might be able to match Draculaura's ability, but for now, was content in knowing that even with the little things like this, they were willing to help each other out despite some difficulties or discomfort. She giggled again as she imagined just what the talent show would be like, not minding the idea of getting to see her boyfriend in a suit looking even more handsome than she already saw him. She smiled as Jackson looked over to her with his own happy smile. It appeared that the 'wash of renewal' that Clawdeen had explained as one of the antidotes listed in those old books, had been both literal and figurative, Jackson's dip in the pool and the meaningful conversations with his friends giving them all a sense of renewal in their friendship.


End file.
